Marsh rues poor execution as Australia near early exit

"At the start the way Australia was batting, everybody thought they will go beyond 220. But they were about 20 to 30 runs short," said Pathum Nissanka, the first centurion in the Men's T20 World Cup 2026, after Sri Lanka's win over Australia.

Australia's innings was one of contrasting halves. The return of captain Mitchell Marsh provided an immediate boost, as he and Travis Head took the team to 104 inside nine overs. Sri Lanka's slower bowlers then engineered a sharp turnaround, led by Dushan Hemantha's three-wicket haul. Despite an injury to Matheesha Pathirana, the attack restricted Australia to 180.

"I think it was probably just execution tonight," said Marsh after the match. "I thought Sri Lanka pulled it back beautifully. We were a few short after the start… we were outplayed."

"We knew we were going to face spin towards the back end, it slowed up a little bit, but again, just execution."

Sri Lanka were methodical in the chase. After an early wicket, Nissanka and Kusal Mendis built a 97-run stand. Although Australia broke the partnership, they couldn't contain Nissanka, who accelerated to an unbeaten 100 off 52 balls. An unbroken 79-run stand with Pavan Rathnayake sealed a Sri Lankan victory with two overs to spare.

"I thought tonight Nissanka just played brilliantly," said Marsh. "You take your hat off to someone when they score 100 off 50 balls in a World Cup match… it was an incredible innings. And we didn't have many answers for him tonight."

Australia are now on the brink of an early exit after back-to-back losses to Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. One more win for Zimbabwe would seal their elimination.

On the difference between the innings, Marsh said: "I don't think there was much dew… partnerships are incredibly important. If you look at the two innings outside of our opening partnership, we just weren't able to form a good one to get going again. So yeah, that's probably the difference in the game."

Nissanka explained Sri Lanka's approach through a translator: "They were planning to bat normally for up to 12 overs and once they were actually batting up to 12 they realised that they were batting well and they were getting runs so they didn't really have to push it… They found it very easy."