T20 World Cup: Nathan Ellis stars as Australia leave Ireland on the verge of exit

Australia, the 2021 champions, were the last of the 20 teams to start the tournament and arrived in Sri Lanka with questions about the form and fitness of their team after the agonizing 3-0 defeat to Pakistan.

Already without the likes of Cummins and Hazelwood from the bowling attack, their injury concerns have been exacerbated by the absence of captain Mitchell Marsh with the 34-year-old suffering a “testicle bleed” after taking a hit to the groin area while receiving a throw during a training session on Sunday.

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

Even without their captain and Tim David, Australia were still able to select a top three who were all involved in the team’s dominant Ashes win over England this winter.

Travis Head, Josh Inglis and Cameron Green all contributed to Australia’s lead at better than 10 overs through the powerplay, although all three were gone by the seventh over.

Head, who was serving as captain, was run out for just six after facing seven balls, while sharp shots from George Dockrell and Sterling set up Green (21) and Inglis (37) – a particularly welcome development for Heinrich Malan’s side after fielding errors proved so costly against Sri Lanka.

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

Given the slow surface used for the second time in four days, Australia’s total of 182 always felt like a good comeback, aided in no small part by their hard work between the wickets as they ran 22 overs.