Australia’s Marsh on Absence of Cummins, Hazlewood

Colombo: Australia captain Mitchell Marsh on Thursday expressed confidence in his team’s depth to cover the absence of injured pacers Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood during the ICC T20 World Cup from Saturday. Cummins has been ruled out of the marquee competition due to a back strain and Hazlewood will miss several group stage matches with an Achilles problem.

“I think there’s a lot of bases that we’ve covered. One of the great things about Pat and Josh being three format players in particular is that we’ve been able to build a lot of depth in our squad and the guys that have come in have played a lot of cricket for our group,” Marsh said at the Captains’ Briefing ahead of the World Cup here.

Marsh hoped that the Australian spinners would be at their best on the Sri Lankan pitches, which are often a haven for slow bowlers.

“We have a lot of confidence that they’ll go out there and do the job when necessary, and then we’ll pick teams based on the conditions. Matthew Kuhnemann has been great for us.”

“We also have Adam Zampa and we have a couple of players returning that are versatile as most teams would,” he added.

Australia’s progress in the World Cup was not ideal as they lost the away T20I series against Pakistan 0-3.

But Marsh didn’t make much sense of this.

“Yes, look, Pakistan was Pakistan. We were missing a few players and we came here with a long preparation and a good training session. We have a friendly match ahead of us and then a long preparation for our game. So, we will prepare very well for our first match,” he said.

Australia is in Group B along with Ireland, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe and Oman.

Marsh described it as a tough draw but said his side had the resources to pull off the challenge.

“Yes, we have great respect for all the teams we will be playing. I think we have been one of the most consistent teams in the world over the last 18 months. We come into this World Cup feeling really confident, knowing that conditions will be different at times.

“But we have guys who have experienced it all over the world,” he said.

Dutch captain Scott Edwards said that they want to play against India in Ahmedabad.

“Obviously we’re very excited. All the groups are strong in their own right. Playing against India in Ahmedabad will obviously be a pretty big deal,” Edwards said.

Oman captain Jatinder Singh hoped that the lessons learned from their head coach and former Sri Lanka captain Duleep Mendis would benefit them in the tournament.

“We have a strong team but we believe we have to play fearless and positive cricket. That’s how we can get to the next tour.

Duleep, he is a great coach and a great mentor to our team, he has been working for many years, he has been with the Oman team since 2012,” said Jatinder.

Ireland captain Paul Stirling was excited to be in a tough group at the World Cup.

“We play cricket because we want to play against the best teams in the world as much as we can and you see such a group emerging and we are very excited to go out there and try to do our best.

“We don’t play cricket at this level every week. So all I can say is when that group shows up there are more smiles than frowns. We’re excited to get out there and hopefully show what we’ve got,” Stirling said.