Australia leave Ireland on brink of World Cup exit

Men’s T20 World Cup, Group B, Colombo

Australia 182-6 (20 overs): Stoinis 45 (29); M Adair 2-44

Ireland 115 all out (16.5 overs): Dockrell 41 (29); Ellis 4-12

Australia win by 67 runs

Australia impressed in their T20 World Cup opener as they made light work of beating Ireland by 67 runs in Colombo.

Nathan Ellis stepped up for a bowling attack missing Pat Cummins and Josh Hazelwood with his figures of 4-12 helping to end a run of five consecutive losses in T20 internationals.

Spinner Adam Zampa also took four wickets against opposition who lost captain Paul Stirling to injury after facing just one delivery.

After losing their opener against co-hosts Sri Lanka on Sunday, Ireland are now on the brink of elimination.

Australia, the 2021 champions, were the last of the 20 teams to get their tournament under way and arrived in Sri Lanka with questions over the form and fitness of their squad after a bruising 3-0 series defeat by Pakistan.

Already without the likes of Cummins and Hazelwood from their bowling attack, their injury concerns were exacerbated by the absence of captain Mitchell Marsh with the 34-year-old suffering “testicular bleeding” after being struck in the groin area while receiving throw downs during a training session on Sunday.

For their opener at least, there were no signs of the predicted gloom.

Even without their skipper and Tim David, Australia were still able to select a top three who had all featured in the Test side’s dominant Ashes victory over England this winter.

Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Cameron Green all contributed to Australia going at a rate better than 10 an over through the powerplay, though all three were gone by the seventh over.

Head, standing in as captain, was run out for only six after facing seven balls, while sharp catches from George Dockrell and Stirling accounted for Green (21) and Inglis (37) – an especially welcome development for Heinrich Malan’s side after the fielding miscues that proved so costly against Sri Lanka.

Ireland were still far from perfect in that regard though, again to the detriment of Matthew Humphreys who barely acknowledged the first wicket of his tournament when he bowled Matt Renshaw to break the Middlesbrough-born 29-year-old’s key 61-run partnership with Marcus Stoinis for Australia’s fifth wicket.

If there was a feeling that Ireland let a chance for a first ever victory over Sri Lanka slip, a maiden triumph over Australia always felt at long odds and again, questions will be asked about whether the side are exposed to opposition of this calibre with enough regularity.

In warm-up games against Italy and UAE, Malan felt he had settled upon a line-up that would allow them to bat down the order but their top and middle order were decimated by an understrength Australia attack.

While their response to the testing chase was not helped by losing skipper Stirling, Ellis quickly put paid to any hopes of a shock.

In the absence of his illustrious bowling colleagues, Ireland had no answer for the 31-year-old’s variation of line and pace as he bowled Ross Adair for 12 and Ben Calitz for 2 either side of inducing a weak shot from Curtis Campher that was taken by Green.

At the conclusion of Ellis’ second over, Ireland were 27-4 but effectively 27-5 given Stirling’s injury.