Australia vs Sri Lanka scorecard, elimination, injuries, squad, analysis, video, highlights

Steve Smith and Matthew Renshaw watched helplessly from the sidelines as Australia suffered a devastating eight-wicket loss to Sri Lanka at Pallekele International Cricket Stadium on Tuesday morning AEDT, a defeat that will heap pressure on the national selection panel.

Australia is on the brink of elimination from the T20 World Cup following consecutive losses to Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, with the 2021 champions now relying on other results to qualify for the next stage of the tournament.

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“It’s a devastated group,” captain Mitch Marsh told the host broadcaster after the match.

“We’re in the lap of the Gods now I think with the way it’s shaped up. There’s a lot of emotions in the rooms right now. We haven’t been at our best.”

But while last week’s defeat to Zimbabwe in Colombo exposed the team’s top-order batting woes, the Sri Lanka contest provided a worrying glimpse at the quality of Australia’s bowling stocks beyond the ‘big three’.

“We were duped,’’ former Australian wicketkeeper Ian Healy told SENQ Breakfast on Tuesday.

“Just like England cricket in the lead-up to the Ashes where there was defiance if ever criticised, denial that would could be wrong even though we picked a power team to play in finicky, finesse conditions in Sri Lanka and India.

“There was total confidence that we will be right. We have heard it all before when England were here and they assured everyone the game had changed and they had it pegged.’’

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Sri Lankan opener Pathum Nissanka was exceptional, cracking an unbeaten 100 from 52 balls to help the hosts reel in the 182-run target with 12 balls to spare, while leg-spinner Dushan Hemantha turned the match on its head with three crucial top-order wickets.

After being sent in, Australia was seemingly cruising at 0-104 in the ninth over courtesy of the returning Marsh and opening partner Travis Head, who each struck fifties. However, the Aussies were rolled for 181 following a dreadful collapse of 10-77, which proved a suboptimal total on the batter-friendly deck.

Renshaw, who top-scored during Australia’s humbling loss to Zimbabwe with a fighting half-century, was dropped for the Sri Lanka clash to accommodate Marsh’s return, with the skipper missing the first two matches due to testicular bleeding. The Queenslander’s absence was sorely felt as Australia’s middle order toppled like dominoes.

“What’s Renshaw doing in a high-vis vest?” Healy continued.

“The team that we put out last night is no good. It doesn’t reek of any class anywhere.”

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Australia’s starting XI was packed with out-of-form batters that have hardly thrown a punch since the start of the Big Bash. All-rounder Cameron Green, batting at No. 3, was stumped for 3 (7) having not managed a half-century in any format since November, while veteran all-rounder Glenn Maxwell, who was inexplicably rested for the warm-up series against Pakistan, has averaged 13.85 since the start of the year.

Young gun Cooper Connolly, dismissed for 3 (4) against Sri Lanka, has averaged 4.90 since he was named in the T20 World Cup squad, while he currently averages 4.67 in T20Is. Elsewhere, the big-hitting Tim David, who missed Australia’s tournament opener against Ireland with a hamstring issue, has contributed six runs across formats this year.

The national selectors have shown their faith in a batting line-up that flourished in 2025, when the T20 side cruised towards series triumphs against the West Indies in the Caribbean, South Africa in northern Australia and the Black Caps in New Zealand. Despite some questionable Big Bash form, a disjointed build-up and the humiliating 3-0 whitewash against Pakistan, George Bailey and his selection panel stuck to their guns, ignoring calls to parachute champion batter Steve Smith into the T20 World Cup squad, a decision that backfired when Marsh suffered his freak injury.

However, vision of the in-form Renshaw and Smith carrying drinks as Australia’s middle-order crumbled in Pallekele will prompt backlash from fans and commentators that have been pleading for Smith’s T20 recall for over a month.

“The whole campaign was doomed from the get-go with selection issues and injuries,” former Australian batter Mark Waugh told SENQ Breakfast.

“I think preparation hasn’t been great. It’s all unfolded probably the way I thought it would, even though we’re in a pretty weak group.

“I know you can’t please everybody, and sometimes there are tough calls that can go either way, but to me, the non-selection of Steve Smith in the squad originally is the most baffling non-selection I can remember for ages.

“Here you’ve got a guy who has looked a class above everybody in the BBL. He’s an outstanding fieldsman. He’s a great player of spin. He should have been first picked, and he wasn’t picked in the squad… then he wasn’t even picked as a replacement, and then they’ve got him over there, and they still haven’t played him.

“Then you’ve got Matt Renshaw, who looks like he’s one of the few players in form, and he’s left out of the big game last night.

“T20 cricket is the hardest format to find form in. You need to pick players who are in form, because the batsman doesn’t get time to build his confidence.”

He added: “The selectors have their plans in place, but you’ve got to be smart enough to see which players are in form and which players are out of form, and you’ve got to play the percentages a lot better than what our selectors have played at the moment.

“It’s just been baffling some of the selections, and injuries haven’t helped obviously.

“I just think they’ve got the selections completely wrong and to have your best player by 100 yards sitting on the sideline in Steve Smith… I think it’s an insult to Steve Smith, to be honest.”

Speaking on SEN, former Australian opener Simon Katich declared that Smith “without a doubt” should have played the Sri Lanka match due to his Big Bash form and subcontinent expertise.

“Who is our best player of spin starting outside the Power Play?” Katich said.

“I know the other guys deserved to be picked off their performances in the lead-in, but when you look at the form of a couple of guys in the top six or seven, there were a number that were under question.

“The challenge with Steve Smith was how they were going to fit him in, but they had to find a way. But the most curious decision of all was how they could leave Renshaw out after he played so well in the previous game against Zimbabwe, where he looked Australia’s best bat by a while.”

While Australia’s batting has been disappointing, it could be argued there are more problems in the bowling attack, which lacked firepower without the experience of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc.

Cummins and Hazlewood were named in Australia’s preliminary T20 World Cup squad but ruled out of the tournament due to back and achilles injuries respectively, while Starc retired from the format last year. In their absence, Australia’s second-string bowling attack lacked penetration, only snaring four wickets across 36 overs against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka collectively, with all four scalps taken by seaming all-rounders Marcus Stoinis and Cameron Green.

Australia relied heavily on the experienced leg-spinner Adam Zampa and crafty seamer Nathan Ellis, but having been granted an opportunity to lead the country’s bowling attack, neither of them were up to the task.

“They’re certainly our two most experienced players,” Marsh said of Ellis and Zampa.

“No doubt we went to them whenever we were under pressure. I haven’t had a chance to really think about how they played tonight in terms of tactics and stuff or how to look at it.

“We weren’t able to take as many wickets and apply as much pressure as we would have liked to.”

Zampa’s importance in the national white-ball teams can’t be overstated; the 33-year-old has taken 106 wickets at 15.32 with an economy rate of 6.61 in T20I wins compared to 36 wickets at 36.55 with an economy rate of 8.58 in defeats. He’s the most important player in the side, with the team’s success resting heavily on his shoulders.

“It shows how classy these guys are in all formats of the game for a long time,” Katich continued.

“Hazlewood is the massive loss.

“Xavier Bartlett is a good young cricketer, but he is still in the early part of his career learning about these conditions on the sub-continent. That is the way it goes.

“What I saw in Pakistan was a one-man band. All they had to do was sit on Adam Zampa … the rest of the Australian bowlers were found out.”

Fast bowlers Xavier Bartlett and Ben Dwarshuis were ineffective with the new ball this week, while Connolly, picked ahead of specialist spinner Matt Kuhnemann, once again went wicketless.

“The bowling attack is incredibly poor,” Healy added.

This year’s T20 World Cup – and last season’s Champions Trophy – offered a look at how Australia’s bowling attack will fare after the ‘big three’ decide to hang up the boots. Albeit a small sample size, it’s not a promising sign of what’s to come.

“Australia was clearly missing Josh Hazlewood,” former Indian all-rounder Irfan Pathan tweeted.

“Also, there are no young quicks who can bowl 140+ in Australia?”

Australia now relies on multiple other Group B matches going their way for any chance of qualification in the Super Eights stage. Their fate rests in the hands of their rivals.

If Zimbabwe wins either of their remaining pool matches against Sri Lanka or Ireland, Australia will be eliminated. Even if the African nation suffers consecutive defeats, Marsh’s men will need nothing less than a monstrous victory over Oman to boost their net run rate, which currently sits at 0.414 compared to Zimbabwe’s 1.984.

But truth, Australia doesn’t deserve to feature in the Super Eights.

Should Australia fail to progress to the next stage, it will mark the third-consecutive T20 World Cup campaign in which they have missed the semi-finals, while only once across 23 World Cup tournaments has Australia failed to make the final eight, being the 2009 T20 World Cup in the United Kingdom.

“I think it is still technically possible. There’s still a chance,” Marsh said.

“I dare say that we’ll all be watching (Zimbabwe vs Ireland). Whether or not it’s together or not, we’ll wait and see. But yeah, what do you say? The luck of the Irish.”

Australia will next face Oman at the same venue on Saturday at 12.30am AEDT.

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