Australia Cricket Team with Jay Shah. Image Credits: AFP
The Australian cricket team's head coach, Andrew McDonald, has called for a special tweak in the format of the 2027 World Cup days after the Jay Shah-led panel announced new rules for the major International Cricket Council tournament.
As per McDonald, the new rules are welcome, but they need a change to be aligned with the playing conditions and performances as well. For the unaware, the tournament has now expanded to 14 teams, including a Super Series round before the group stages, and a new Super 7 before the semi-finals.
The World Cup will take place in South Africa, Zimbabwe and Namibia, with Australia eyeing to defend their title after the 2023 win at the iconic Narendra Modi Stadium.
Andrew McDonald demands bigger squad sizes for 2027 World Cup
The more than one-month-long tournament set to take place next year will see a lot of gruelling matches for a 15-player squad. As per the new format, the winner of the tournament will have to play at least 13 matches, while some teams might even have to play 15 if any upsets happen from the 12, 13 and 14 ranked teams.
While ICC will ensure that there will be at least a two-day break before a team plays their next match, as per Andrew McDonald, managing injuries and workload concerns becomes tougher with a small squad size.
"One of the big things from my perspective is if it's going to be your pinnacle event, what do your squad sizes look like? We had the dilemma of what it looked like having a 15-player squad for the last World Cup, and I think New Zealand were in the same boat where we had a couple of injuries, Travis Head been the most notable one, and I think Kane Williamson and a couple of others for New Zealand, where you end up with sort of 12-13 players to select from early on in your tournament.
Then you're trying to carry those other players through the early rounds, and you're not able to play potentially the way that you want to play, or structure up the way that you think you need to, and in particular in countries where you in the north or the south or the east or the west, the conditions change quite significantly," McDonald said to SEN Radio.
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Why is Australia pushing for greater squad sizes?
It is understood that the Aussies are well aware of what their fitness and core team would look like ahead of the 2027 World Cup.
Already having one of the most aged teams, workload concerns stay at the top of the priority for the defending champions, and that would be very difficult to manage if the squad size is small. Hence, McDonald urged the ICC to consider squad sizes of at least 17.
"My push within it, any time you're playing more games in the same period of time, you don't want it to be attritional. You want the best players to be available. This is going to be a pinnacle event. I think there's an argument to say, great, you've put more games in front of us, give us larger squads, allow us to play the way that we need to play within those conditions.
Then also you've got the ability to carry those potential stars of the game that are under injury clouds leading in because the cricket leading into the 2027 World Cup is demanding, so you're going to have some people that potentially are 50-50 at that point in time,” McDonald said.
Why McDonald think having a 17-member squad is mandatory?
To ensure quality gameplay, veterans and stars of the game are necessary to feature, which will allow for better competitiveness on the field and a better match-watching experience.
Citing the gravity and importance of the tournament, McDonald shared that a larger squad size like the FIFA World Cup would allow players to reshuffle, rest and recover rather than getting ruled out of the tournament entirely due to injury.
"So let's carry the best players in there. Give us larger squads to be able to navigate through the early part, and then hopefully the pinnacle event has the best players playing, rather than being ruled out early on due to injury and the attritional nature of a World Cup," McDonald added.
Nevertheless, it has been understood that the ICC will be sticking to the 15-man squad for the tournament without expanding the squad size, but with proper scheduling that will allow teams to get enough time to rest and rehabilitate, while injury concerns will still be difficult to manage.
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