Australia are the team to beat as they lay siege to T20 World Cup title | Geoff Lemon

Test nations are falling to the minnows in the US and Caribbean but Mitch Marsh’s team are looking ominously good

If we’re blunt, it’s easy to see why modern cricketing countries hate Australia. Or at least why they resent Australia. Beyond anything about historical disagreements or abrasiveness that observers could reasonably cite, one part has nothing to do with personality. However pleasant the individual players, it must eventually be impossible not to be fed up with a team that among such a small pool of contenders keeps winning such a disproportionate amount of the time.

In the current T20 World Cup, Pakistan lost to the United States of America and battled to a win against Canada. The tier-down Canadians beat the Test-qualified Irish. England got rained off against Scotland and were probably lucky to share the points. South Africa nearly lost to the Dutch for the third world tournament in a row. New Zealand got annihilated by Afghanistan, and still sit in their group behind Uganda, who beat a much more established team in Papua New Guinea. Former champions Sri Lanka are already knocked out, winless at the bottom of their group behind Netherlands and Nepal.

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