Australian cricketers face World Cup uphill battle after shock loss

Australia has the odds stacked against them when they meet Sri Lanka in Monday’s World Cup match after losing to South Africa last Thursday.

Considered one of the best teams in the world, the Aussie cricketers set a shocking new record in the wrong direction when they lost by 134 runs to the Proteas.

The defeat was Australia’s biggest loss by runs against any team in the history of the men’s World Cup and has left the team facing a gigantic challenge to make the semi-finals.

Australia sits ninth out of 10 teams in the round-robin league and needs to win at least six of its remaining seven matches, starting with Monday’s match against Sri Lanka, to make it into the semi-finals.

Thursday’s match saw the Aussies drop five catches during the South African innings.

Aussie batter Marcus Stoinis was also dismissed after an umpire decision that caused confusion among the cricketers.

After a century from Quinton de Kock and 56 from Aiden Markram, the Aussies were already heading towards defeat at 5-70 chasing 312 when South Africa appealed for a leg side caught behind catch to remove Stoinis.

Umpire Joel Wilson turned this down but the Proteas fought against the umpire’s decision. After much thought, another umpire, Richard Kettleborough, ruled Stoinis had gloved the ball to de Kock.

Australian cricketer Marnus Labuschagne said he had thought Stoinis’ hand was off his bat when the ball touched his glove, which would have meant the West Australian was not out.

“The umpires really didn’t know what was going on. They just saw what we saw,” Labuschagne said.

“For me it looked like his hand was off the bat and hit the glove. It was certainly confusing.”

Labuschagne said all was not lost despite the team’s situation.

“We’re one of the best fielding sides in the world. We pride ourselves on that. And, you know, we just didn’t seem to get it right today,” Labuschagne said.

“We’re gonna need to win every game from here, I assume, or at least very, very close to get into that four. But once again, it’s the reason Australia’s won the World Cup five times, is because we play well under pressure and we haven’t started well but this is the beginning, not the end.

“I consider us one of the top sides. And it’s disappointing that we haven’t competed in the last two games.”

POLL

GLOSSARY

• round-robin: a sporting contest where each teams plays in turn against one another
• innings: the portion of the game where one team bats, or where one player bats
• century: when a batter scores 100 or more runs in one inning
• caught behind catch: when the batter hits the ball and the ball is then caught by the wicketkeeper before it hits the ground
• gloved: when the ball hits the batter’s glove while holding the bat, resulting in the hit being counted as a normal bat
• dismissed: when a batter is ruled as being out and must stop batting

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QUICK QUIZ
1. How many runs did Australia lose by in the game against South Africa?
2. How many catches did Australia drop against South Africa?
3. What position does Australia sit in the World Cup?
4. How many World Cup games do they need to win to make the semi-finals?
5. What is a “century” in cricket?

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. World Cup pressure
As the Australian men’s cricket team are among the best in the world, and have won the cricket World Cup five times, it adds a lot of pressure on the players and team to perform well, each and every game. Complete the analysis below;

What went wrong in the game against the Proteas?

How can they improve upon their performance for the next game?

How can they still aim to make the finals?

What happens if they don’t make the finals?

How does a win or loss affect professional sports people?

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Pretend you are the coach of the cricket World Cup team. Write an inspirational speech you would give the team before their next match against Sri Lanka, which is a must win if they want to make finals.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Health and Physical Education, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Imaginative dialogue
Imagine you were there during the event being discussed in the article, or for the interview.

Create a conversation between two characters from the article – you may need or want to include yourself as one of the characters. Don’t forget to try to use facts and details from the article to help make your dialogue as realistic as possible.

Go through your writing and highlight any punctuation you have used in green. Make sure you carefully check the punctuation used for the dialogue and ensure you have opened and closed the speaking in the correct places.