‘All Bases Covered’: Marsh Confident Despite Australia’s Disrupted World Cup Build-Up

Australia captain Mitchell Marsh has played down his team’s disrupted preparation for the T20 World Cup, insisting the squad remains “really confident” despite rain washing out their final warm-up match in Sri Lanka.

Australia’s build-up to the tournament has been far from ideal. A 3–0 series defeat in Pakistan was followed by the abandonment of their only scheduled warm-up international in Colombo, with rain preventing a ball being bowled against the Netherlands at the R Premadasa Stadium on Thursday.

The match was seen as a crucial opportunity for Australia to acclimatise to local conditions under lights and for key allrounder Glenn Maxwell — who joined the squad after missing the Pakistan series — to regain match sharpness. Instead, Australia will head into their World Cup opener against Ireland next Wednesday without having played an international fixture in Sri Lanka.

Despite the setbacks, Marsh remained upbeat, pointing to a lengthy lead-in period and additional preparation time ahead of their opening match.

“Pakistan was Pakistan. We had a few guys missing,” Marsh said. “We’ve come here with a long lead-in and had a really good training session yesterday. Because we arrive a bit later, we’ve actually got four extra days of preparation, so we’ll be very well prepared for our first game.”

Australia’s preparations have also been clouded by injury concerns, with fast bowler Josh Hazlewood likely to miss the early stages of the tournament as he continues his recovery from an Achilles issue. Marsh said there was no update on Hazlewood’s availability but expressed confidence in the squad’s bowling depth, even in the absence of the full pace trio of Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc.

“One of the great things about Pat and Josh being three-format players is that we’ve built a lot of depth in our squad,” Marsh said. “The guys who’ve come in have played a lot of cricket for this group, and we’ve got a lot of confidence in them to do the job when required.”

Marsh also highlighted Australia’s spin options, naming Matthew Kuhnemann and Adam Zampa alongside several spinning allrounders as key weapons in Sri Lankan conditions.

“We’ve got all bases covered,” he said. “Now it’s just about getting stuck into it.”

Australia have been drawn in a potentially tricky group alongside co-hosts Sri Lanka, as well as Ireland, Zimbabwe and Oman. While acknowledging the challenge, Marsh was bullish about his side’s prospects.

“We’ve got great respect for all the teams,” he said. “But over the last 18 months, I feel we’ve been one of the most consistent sides in the world. We come into this World Cup confident, knowing conditions will be different, but we’ve got players who’ve experienced that all over the world.”

Since the last T20 World Cup in 2024, Australia have lost just seven of their 24 T20 internationals — a record Marsh believes underlines the team’s readiness for the global tournament.