Australia seek to end forgettable campaign on high note

Pallekele (PTI): Australia will look to end one of their most calamitous World Cup campaigns on a positive note when they meet minnows Oman in their inconsequential final outing of this year's T20 showpiece here on Friday.

Australia, the limited-overs titans with six ODI and one T20I World Cup titles, were eliminated in the group stage after Tuesday's game between Zimbabwe and Ireland in Kandy was washed out, which paved the way for the much-improved African side's entry into the Super Eights from Group B along with tournament co-hosts Sri Lanka.

An injury-ravaged Australia showed glimpses of their batting prowess in the first half of their innings in the loss against Sri Lanka, but it was their shock defeat to Zimbabwe that really blew their campaign apart, forcing the administrators back home to announce a "forensic review" of their performance once the players return to the country.

The forgettable campaign was marked by injuries to key players, poor form, and baffling selection calls. The result was that the 2021 winners failed to progress beyond the group stage for the first time since 2009.

Australia though, despite the absence of their star pace trio of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, entered the tournament as one of the favourites, but things went downhill quickly following the reverse against Zimbabwe.

Now, before heading home, they will want to notch a win and then start focussing on the arduous process of long-term rebuilding, particularly with many key players now on the wrong side of 30.

Australia will enter the game as overwhelming favourites despite their disappointing campaign, which saw them win only one of their three matches so far, a 67-run victory over Ireland.

In the last meeting between the two countries in the 2024 edition of the tournament in the Americas, Australia emerged winners by 39 runs, and quite a few players of the current squads were part of that match from both teams.

Australia have struggled to live up to the expectations in ICC tournaments since their title triumph in the 2023 ODI World Cup.

They were eliminated in the Super Eights stage of the last T20 World Cup after defeats to India and Afghanistan and reached the semifinals of the Champions Trophy last year, when Pakistan hosted the tourney with eventual champions India playing all their matches in the UAE.

This, however, has been their worst outing in recent years.

On the other hand, Oman too have struggled significantly throughout this tournament, losing all three of their group matches by big margins.

Men like Jatinder Singh and Sufyan Mehmood will be hoping to leave an impression as they take to the field for one last time in the tournament.

Teams (from): Australia: Mitchell Marsh (c), Xavier Bartlett, Cooper Connolly, Tim David, Ben Dwarshuis, Cameron Green, Nathan Ellis, Josh Hazlewood, Travis Head, Josh Inglis, Matthew Kuhnemann, Glenn Maxwell, Matthew Renshaw, Marcus Stoinis, Adam Zampa, Steve Smith.

Oman: Jatinder Singh (c), Aamir Kaleem, Hammad Mirza, Wasim Ali, Karan Sonavale, Jiten Ramanandi, Vinayak Shukla (wk), Sufyan Mehmood, Nadeem Khan, Shah Faisal, Shakeel Ahmed, Mohammad Nadeem, Jay Odedra, Ashish Odedara, Shafiq Jan.

Match starts at 7PM IST.