Coach Andrew McDonald says Australia will be “zeroed in” on avoiding an embarrassing upset against minnows Oman at the T20 World Cup.
Australia failed to make the second phase for only the second time in the event’s history after defeats to Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka.
“We’ve got a pretty sort of devastated group, it’s fair to say,” McDonald told reporters in Kandy ahead of Friday’s final match against Oman, now a dead rubber.
“We’re usually alive coming to these points in time, but it’s not to be. We’ve put ourselves in this position. So hopefully, Oman, we can prepare and go and do the job there.”
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Defeat against 20th-ranked Oman would be the biggest embarrassment of all.
“There won’t be any lack of motivation against Oman,” said McDonald. “We’ve got one more World Cup game and we’ll be zeroed in on that.”
The match will end a chaotic Australian campaign.
Australia arrived in Sri Lanka after being drubbed 3-0 in Pakistan and without injured fast bowlers Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood.
They then lost their captain Mitchell Marsh for the first two games after he was hit during practice and suffered testicular bleeding.
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Australia’s acerbic media did not hold back in their criticism, citing selection “stuff-ups”.
Chief among those is sticking with the woefully out-of-form Cameron Green and promoting Tim David to No 4 as a “power hitter” when he had not played since December because of a hamstring injury.
Glenn Maxwell, so often a match-winner with the bat in the past, is struggling for runs and the Australians dearly missed the experience of Cummins and Hazlewood.
Matt Renshaw was Australia’s top run-scorer in the first two group matches, but he was bewilderingly dropped for the Sri Lanka clash.
“I think the debate around selection is always great,” said McDonald. “There’s always differing opinions from the outside and sometimes the people on the outside don’t understand what the moving parts are and what the conversations are on the inside.”
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The selectors had been panned for leaving out all-time great Steve Smith from the original squad, despite his scintillating BBL form.
Smith was finally flown in and added to the squad last week, only to be ignored for the must-win game against Sri Lanka on Monday.
Without Smith and Renshaw, Australia collapsed from 160-4 to 181 all out and lost by eight wickets.
“They’re entitled to their opinions,” McDonald said of the criticism. “Unfortunately, we weren’t able to get the performances that we wanted, so those people are entitled to critique that and we’re incredibly disappointed with where we’re at.”
The final nail in the coffin came when Zimbabwe’s match against Ireland was abandoned the next day, putting the African nation through with Sri Lanka.
“The next game is Oman. So we’ve got to get our heads right around that,” said McDonald. “I think the time to start to look back over what happened will be when we exit the shores here.”
– AFP
Photo: Robert Cianflone/Getty Images
