By Travis Head doesn’t mince words in press conferences. When asked on the eve of Australia’s first-ever match against Oman about his knowledge of the opposition, he admitted he knew little. This match will be Oman’s biggest-ever international match, on the biggest stage, against potentially their most high-profile opponents. While the Australians would have studied the customary footage of the Oman players, as Head put it, it will come down to dealing with what is in front of them on the night of Wednesday (June 5) at the Kensington Oval in Barbados.
It’ll be a rare opportunity for the Australians to face a team whose players none of them have encountered on the field. A throwback to when Test teams would face Associate nations in previous generations of World Cups.
The cliche will be that Oman have nothing to lose and everything to gain by putting on a show against the former champions, who are desperate to start their campaign well in their bid to complete the treble. Their captain, Aqib Ilyas, echoed this sentiment in his own impressive press conference. For the Australians, it’ll be about getting a group of seasoned players who have played a lot of cricket together to come together once more, as they look to replicate their 50-over World Cup win in November with pretty much the same group.
It’ll be interesting to see how they do that after an unusual lead-up to the World Cup, with many of their players landing in the Caribbean only days before the opening game. With the washout on Tuesday, their final optional training session was also called off, meaning that only four of their players would have had more than a single hit in the net before they face Oman.
For Oman, as Ilyas put it, this match will be their chance to redeem themselves after running Namibia very close and losing in the Super Over. Regardless of the result, this match will go down in their history as very special.
With England and Scotland having shared points after their match was abandoned, Group B already looks interesting. This will be a chance for Australia to put real pressure on their arch-rivals by getting off to a flying start and making Saturday’s clash between the two a high-stakes match for Jos Buttler and his team.
When: Australia vs Oman, June 5, 08.30 PM Local, 06.00 am IST (June 6), 10.30 am (June 6) AEST
Where: Kensington Oval, Bridgetown, Barbados
What to expect: After the washout on Tuesday, there might be concerns over every game played in Barbados for the remainder of the tournament. But the forecast is better for tonight, and even if it does rain, it’ll likely be too brief to impact the match. The pitch has been a talking point since the Oman spinners strangled the Namibians in what seemed like a paltry run-chase. Ilyas has warned the Australians that it could be very difficult for them if it plays the same way it did in the opening match here.
Head-to-Head in T20 World Cups: First-ever T20I meeting
Team Watch
Australia
The big selection topic for the Aussies is how they fit in a second specialist spinner in Ashton Agar, even if Glenn Maxwell is considered a specialist in the shorter formats. Based on the attention the left-arm spinner has received in the last few days, it’s likely that he’ll start ahead of one of the senior fast bowlers. It remains to be seen if that’s the way they go, and if so, which one of Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, and Josh Hazlewood is rested early on in the tournament. Mitch Marsh is back to bowling again, at least in the nets for now, which also helps.
Tactics & Matchups: It was interesting listening to Travis Head talk about his experiences in the IPL and how he got to play the style of cricket that Australia want to with the Sunrisers Hyderabad. He’ll have a similarly aggressive left-handed partner at the other end at the top of the order. One wonders if Australia will start off very aggressively, despite all the talk of the conditions in North America not seemingly suited to that style of play.
Probable XI: Travis Head, David Warner, Mitchell Marsh (c), Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Tim David, Matthew Wade (wk), Pat Cummins/Ashton Agar, Mitchell Starc, Adam Zampa, Josh Hazlewood
Oman
Ilyas indicated that he was prepared to stick to the same bowling attack as the last game, considering how impressive they were in holding Namibia at bay. He also praised Bilal Khan, despite David Wiese taking him apart in the Super Over, mentioning how the team trusted him to be their key bowler.
Probable XI: Kashyap Prajapati, Naseem Khushi (wk), Aqib Ilyas (c), Zeeshan Maqsood, Khalid Kail, Ayaan Khan, Mohammad Nadeem, Mehran Khan, Shakeel Ahmed, Kaleemullah, Bilal Khan
Did you know?
- David Warner needs 22 runs to go past Aaron Finch (3120) as Australia’s leading run-getter in T20Is
- Adam Zampa is eight wickets away from becoming the first Australia bowler to reach the 100-wicket milestone in T20Is
What they said
“I guess we play so much One day, I guess the one day World Cup didn’t really feel like a World Cup until we get down to the business end of it. So a little bit the same here. You want to be winning every game. You want to be peaking at the right time. So for us, we start tomorrow, but also we want to do the right things, get the super eights and be peaking in the back end” – Travis Head
“It is a good experience for the team and hopefully all the big names, all the big things, they are outside the field. Once you step into the field, there is no big name, there is no one bigger than you at the field. So yeah, it’s another game for us and we don’t think that we are going to play someone, something extraordinary. It’s a game, we have to take it as a game” – Aqib Ilyas
