Australia vs Ireland T20 World Cup higlights: AUS beat IRE by 67 runs in Colombo

No, it's probably more the unknown of what you're gonna get. I've been here a few times now and it's been a bit sporadic at times, watching some of the games at this tournament at this stadium pre our game today. You sort of have to show a lot of skin through the middle and some slower wickets. And sort of you're a little bit coming in, but for me, it's just trying to adapt on the fly and just trying to get started. I think I'll get along now that I know the rest now and I've had some time off at home. So I was like, yeah, here we go. First one away. Yeah, I mean, I'll take the average height down a fair way, but also it's, I mean, we've said it a lot now these weeks, but we haven't seen a lot of the big boys in the white ball cricket series in the last 18 months. We sort of the likes of Bartlett, Sean Abbott, some of the younger guys in the recent series in Pakistan. So we're playing together a few now and you know, I think the planning and the processes in the last eight months leading to this has put us in a good understanding to go deep hopefully without, without the likes of the big boys. Probably after watching the first couple of overs for, you know, swing things out the part of the start-up and there wasn't a lot of swing or seam there for me. So I sort of just came to like, what my home is back is the power play in the middle. Yeah, sort of trying to just see what I can see and see where and, yeah, probably the best support. Yeah, I think for me being a little bit shorter and a little bit skinnier, especially on these wickets when I do go pace on, I just try to hit the wickets as hard as I can and, and try and bowl as fast as I can. So, as much as I keep my arm speed similar and hopefully as more speed, as big a difference as I can, I'm sort of hopefully, you know, give myself a little bit of an unfair advantage. Yeah, it's one of those ones with Zorby, he sort of does that walk off regardless of another day. You know, I think if you just sit back and really think about it, I really don't want to take you for granted, because he's one of the world's best, but yeah, he's just our power. So yeah, another, another great outing for tonight, but I mean, I can't go without mentioning that middle order partnership to get us to the title today. It looks, you know, I've had on a little bit earlier, but then I want to lie to him, and then after me, he scored a few runs out there. So with friends, these experienced friends and sort of just put on a partnership like that for us for the title that we could apply some pressure in the powerplay.

Zampa gets one more wicket of Adair here. It does seem like it was a flipper and went quickly through to the batter, who once again tried to play a horizontal bat shot and ended up not getting an edge and was held on the boundary. Teams need to be wary of Zampa espically when the boundaries are longer in the squarer region. Day in, day out, he will deceive with that good length region, and it will seem like it is on the shorter side, and one can pull, but it tends to be either too quick or too slow. Very tricky customer to deal with.

It does seem like the chase has lost its sting here with those early wickets, and the batters in the middle seem to have raised the white flag and now are looking to just get some game time in the middle against this quality bowling attack. The run-rate is spiking quite quickly for Ireland. As per the Aussies, they are just going through their drills, bowling the balls in the right areas and getting the basics right. Ireland will next face Oman and Zimbabwe and those are the games they should be able to win in this tournament.

Adam Zampa has come into the attack here. One of the errors Ireland made today is trying to play the shots square of the wickets rather than going down the ground. Be it Ellis or Zampa now they will want the batters to hit across the line as they willl operate in that good lenght region and vary their pace if someone is not picking them of the hand or if the pitch by any natural cicumstances like dew or under lights tend skid quicker they are even harder to deal with and as we update that is what Delany did here trying to hit square got the outside edge to Inglis.

Nathan Ellis has come into the attack and picked up two wickets in that over. First one was Ross Adair, who had no clue what the ball was doing. It kept a tad bit low and was back-of-the-hand slower. One from Ellis did him, and then again, another slower one after bowling 140 plus delivery which Campher hit straight to the mid-wicket fielder. Ireland has lost three wickets here in no time, and it does seem like they are out of this contest already. They will need a good partnership here for now and stay in the game.

Ireland (Playing XI): Paul Stirling(c), Ross Adair, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker(w), Curtis Campher, Benjamin Calitz, George Dockrell, Gareth Delany, Mark Adair, Barry McCarthy, Matthew Humphreys

Australia (Playing XI): Travis Head(c), Josh Inglis(w), Cameron Green, Matt Renshaw, Cooper Connolly, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Nathan Ellis, Xavier Bartlett, Matthew Kuhnemann, Adam Zampa

First it was Renshaw who got undone by the arm-ball of Humphrey's, who bowled a jaffa of a delivery, and then it was Marcus Stonis who fell trying to hit on the leg-side and ended up giving the catch to the square-leg fielder who came running and took a lovely catching, sliding, and had a reverse-cup. That wicket of Stoinis will definitely help Ireland to cut down at least 15 runs from the final total, which the Aussies were looking to get. Good bowling effort from Ireland if they could have taken their catches, Aussies would have been in an even worse situation.

The Irish are letting the Aussies go here. The latter are not looking to attack and are just looking to build a partnership here. The spinners are looking to bowl quicker and flatter instead of inviting them to hit long boundaries by tossing one up. It has been a pretty functional from them they have not tried to overdo things just did enough to keep the batters under check but now given how both Renshaw and Stoinis are batting in the middle they can toss a few up and see if there is any turn on offer and if batters will lose their discpline and go after the bowling.

Smart piece of bowling that from Tector, he threw that one wide and flat, which Maxwell tried to cut and got the under-edge, and keeper Tucker took a lovely catch. Often, we do see that ball sneak in between the legs of the batters and run away for a boundary, but the anticipation from the keeper has been quite brilliant. Australia continue to lose wickets here in Colombo, they will need a partnership of some degree if they want to get a competitive total. As of now, it does seem like they will fall a few runs short.

Ireland is chipping away here; they have picked up another wicket in Inglis, who was a set batter. Clever piece of bowling that from Dockrell, making Inglis hit through the covers, which he did not do all afternoon, and he ended up chipping in the air, which Stirling took the catch, jumping up and taking. A brilliant catch from the Ireland skipper. Australia seems to have a serious batting problem. They do have players who can play match-winning innings but seem to lack a batting spine who can hold an end up.

Good over for Australia that one, Humphrey's continue to bowl flatter and quicker, which Inglis was ready and started to put his weight on the backfoot and hit and all around the ground, he could have tried to test one with a fuller one but did not happen. It seems like a decent wicket this one; there is no blade of grass, and it might get a bit better later under the lights to bat on. However, there seems to be just a bit of unrest in the Australian batting order here. It does seem like the Pakistan series recently had its toll on the mindsets of the batters.

It is quite hot here in Premadasa. Australia will be batting first, which has been a weakness of theirs in the recently concluded Pakistan series. They would want to kick off the campaign pretty nicely here in Colombo. Travis Head and Jos Inglis have walked into the middle as openers for Australia.

We would have batted as well, to be honest. Look, the games come thick and fast. We haven’t had much time to train things through. So it’s about a fresh start again. There were some obvious errors that we’ll try to cut out today. Having played here in our last game, knowing the conditions hopefully works to our advantage. From our perspective, I think it does. We don’t take anything away from the Australian side, but knowing the conditions and how the pitch might react probably gives us a slight edge. We’ve gone with the same side.

Paul Stirling(c), Ross Adair, Harry Tector, Lorcan Tucker(w), Curtis Campher, Benjamin Calitz, George Dockrell, Gareth Delany, Mark Adair, Barry McCarthy, Matthew Humphreys

“Look we do have a lot of power in our unit, but we've also got a lot of skill and a lot of experience from one to seven. So I think it's just play what's in front of us, adapt to the conditions, communicate really well, and whatever's thrown at us, just jump at the opportunity and have a crack,” Marsh said.

This is the first ICC event in nearly a decade where Australia will be without Mitchell Starc (retired), Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood (both injured). The team will miss out on the trio's knowledge of the conditions. They have travelled with a relatively inexperienced squad — Nathan Ellis with 32 caps is the most experienced among seamers alongside Xavier Bartlett (18) and Ben Dwarshuis (14). Beyond them the two all-rounders Cameron Green and Marcus Stoinis have to do the heavy lifting.

"We've done some of that work over the last 24 hours leading into this game. Very clear around some of the plans that we've got in place for some of the Australian players. And if we can adapt to the situation and the conditions quickly out there, hopefully the boys can execute their skills well tomorrow."

Mitchell Marsh (c), Travis Head, Josh Inglis (wk), Cameron Green, Matthew Renshaw, Marcus Stoinis, Glenn Maxwell, Nathan Ellis, Xavier Bartlett, Adam Zampa, Matthew Kuhnemann