Australia open their T20 World Cup campaign against Ireland in Colombo on Wednesday, but it seems the Irish are not their real opponents. The Aussies will have to push off the burden of injuries first.
Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood couldn’t be fit in time for the match, while clouds of uncertainty hung over the availability of pacer Nathan Ellis and big-hitter Tim David. Ellis has been cleared for Wednesday’s game, but David will have to sit it out.
Will Australia be bogged down by the injury setbacks? It shouldn’t be, given their pedigree. Captain Mitch Marsh is confident that they can overcome the odds.
“Guys like Patty (Cummins) have played a lot for us over the last few years due to his hectic schedule, and over the last 12 months, guys like Benny Dwarshuis and Xavier Bartlett have played pretty much all of our games,” Marsh said on Tuesday, speaking about his team’s inexperienced pace attack.
“We’ve got great confidence that they’ve been able to do a role for us, and they’ve excelled in some games. So
we’re confident with the group that we’ve got here. And we’ve built that for the last 12 months,” he added.
Ellis, the leader of the pace attack, echoed his captain. “We’ve had 18-24 months of cricket together where the big three haven’t been playing and have had big workloads in the Test arena. I actually think we work together really, really well,” he said.
Ireland had lost their opening game against Sri Lanka.