Australian captain Mitchell Marsh fronted the media in an awkward press conference following Monday evening’s devastating T20 World Cup loss to Sri Lanka at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium.
Having suffered consecutive losses to Zimbabwe and co-hosts Sri Lanka, the Australians now rely on other results falling in their favour for any chance of qualifying for the Super Eights, which remains a mathematical possibility.
“Pretty shattered,” Marsh, who missed Australia’s first two matches due to a testicular injury, told reporters following the eight-wicket loss to Sri Lanka.
“Disappointing to lose that game, but fair play to Sri Lanka with the way they batted, they outplayed us.
“The boys are hurting.
“We had great belief that we’d get the job done, but we were outplayed.”
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Matthew Renshaw, Australia’s leading run-scorer of the tournament, was dropped for the crucial match against Sri Lanka despite top-scoring during Friday’s shock loss to Zimbabwe.
Asked for the reasoning behind the contentious selection call, Marsh explained: “I had to come back in. That was the main reason.”
Another journalist, who seemingly got their calculations wrong, told Marsh that it was now “impossible” for Australia to reach the Super Eights stage.
“Isn’t it still technically possible?” the West Australian replied with a smirk.
“There’s still a chance.”
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After being sent in, Australia was cruising at 1-110 in the tenth over before the 2021 champions suffered a dreadful collapse of 9-71, eventually rolled for 181.
“I guess we’ll never know what would have happened if we made 220,” Marsh said of the batting stumble.
“As I said earlier, we had a good platform, but we just weren’t able to execute towards the back-end. It’s disappointing.”
Another reporter again asked about Australia’s batting during the second half of the innings, to which a flummoxed Marsh replied: “Have I answered that twice already?
“I think the same answer as the other couple of questions, we just weren’t able to execute.”
Sri Lanka reeled in the 182-run target courtesy of an unbeaten 100 from 52 balls by opener Pathum Nissanka, who cracked the first hundred of the tournament.
“I thought tonight Nissanka just played brilliantly to take our situation and our team out of it,” Marsh said.
“You take your hat off to someone when they score 100 off 50 balls in a World Cup match in a tight run chase at this stage of our group. “It was an incredible innings, and we didn’t have many answers for him tonight.”
To qualify for the next stage of the tournament, Australia now needs Zimbabwe to lose both of their upcoming pool matches – against Ireland and Sri Lanka – and secure a crushing victory over Oman that heavily boosts their net run rate.
“I dare say that we’ll all be watching (the Zimbabwe vs Ireland match),” Marsh said.
“Whether or not it’s together or not, we’ll wait and see. But yeah, what do you say? The luck of the Irish.
“Right now it’s out of my control, so we’ll wait and see.”
Zimbabwe will face Ireland at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday, with the first ball scheduled for 8.30pm AEDT.
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