It's time for us to wrap up the coverage of this game. Australia started the T20 World Cup 2024 with a comprehensive victory over Oman, who have now lost two games in a row. Next up, we have Pakistan vs USA and Namibia vs Scotland. There are plenty of matches being covered in our network.
Stay tuned with us. For now, it's me, AkshayaKrishna Polya, signing off on behalf of my co-commentators, Akshay Bhide and Ajay Pal Singh, who, alongside our scorers/analysts Bishal Mandal and Zeeshan Naiyer, brought you all the live-action of this fixture. We will meet again. Until then, it's cheers!!
Mitchell Marsh (Australia Captain): "Yeah, a nice start. A pretty close one in the end. Looking at the nature of this tournament, it kind of feels like we are going to the old school style of T20 cricket here. Everyone has to play a different role.
We may get a few wickets which are good for batting but someone has to bat through. Davy delivered tonight.
Stoinis played a special knock and then with the ball as well. Initially he took time with the bat but later he just got going through the end.
Starcy just has a cramp, it is a long tournament. He said he is fine. When he says he is fine to go, you just let him go.
I think these are just different conditions than what we have used to and that is why teams are struggling a bit. We now face England, hopefully a massive crowd there."
Aqib Ilyas Sulehri (Oman Captain):"It was set up really good. After losing the last match in the super over, we showed good fight tonight. I'm proud of our boys. We did well against them. That one dropped catch was the turning point. It messed up things for us. Stoinis took off from there.
The media only shows bad things. They don't show the good things we say about them (Australia). We respect them and all the players.
I wanted to take such catches. Our ex-captain Zeeshan took a similar catch and it was hyped for a lot of time. I was really eager to grab one catch and glad that it came against the Australian team.
I guess we messed up a little bit. When he (Stoinis) hit a couple of sixes, I went to the bowlers and told them to change their lengths. I told them to use the longer boundary and bowl slower deliveries into the surface. But we were in control of the game till the 14th over but they scored in the end there.
We have to work on our batting. We have performed really well in the past but we have to step up. Hopefully, the batters will step up in the next game. Scotland is a decent team. We will not take them lightly. We have played against them in the past. We will look to stay more positive. If we get more runs in the powerplay, we can win. I spoke with the Australian captain and he said that if you score more in the powerplay, you can be on the top. So, we will try to be positive upfront."
Australians with 300+ T20 Wickets:
-Andrew Tye: 332 Scalps
-Adam Zampa: 301 Scalps*
Marcus Stoinis (Player of the Match): "Yeah, it was a nice start. The boys spent some time in the middle and it was good to get the win.
We lost early wickets but we tried to hit the ball along the ground. I was just trying to soak up the conditions and keep it simple in the middle.
(Which was hard to face tonight) Spin, I guess. Some were keeping low. Some were spinning and some were not spinning. The quicks against the new ball was also tough as well.
(On hitting four sixes in a single over) I and David spoke about getting some momentum. When I hit a couple of blows, I tried hit a few more. I was not committed to it at the start of the over at all.
(On bowling plans) Not seam-up. I tried to bowl cross-seam deliveries and scrambled seam deliveries. There was no swing for the seam-up deliveries. I don't know about the speeds. I guess it turned up on."
Player of the Match: Marcus Stoinis
Players to score 50+ runs and pick up 3+ wickets in a T20 WC Match:
-Dwayne Bravo vs India at Lord's in 2009 (66* and 4/38)
-Shane Watson vs Ireland at Colombo in 2012 (51 and 3/26)
-Shane Watson vs India at Colombo in 2012 (72 and 3/34)
-Marcus Stoinis vs Oman at Barbados, TONIGHT (67* and 3/19)
9:46 AM IST & 12:16 AM Local Time: Australia begin their T20 World Cup 2024 campaign with an easy 39-run win over Oman.
Oman skipper Aqib Ilyas won the toss and opted to bowl first on a sluggish pitch. The first 10 overs went their way as the bowling team managed to keep things tight and also picked up three wickets. Australia were 56 for 3 at the halfway mark.
The dangerous Travis Head fell for 12 in the third over, dismissed by Bilal Khan. Australia captain Mitchell Marsh also failed to convert his start into a big innings and perished for 14.
Glenn Maxwell’s poor run with the bat continued as he fell for a golden duck thanks to an outstanding catch by the Oman skipper at short extra cover.
Marcus Stoin partnered Warner and the duo stitched together a 102-run partnership for the 4th wicket. Warner scored 56 off 51 before losing his wicket to Kaleemulah.
Stoinis kept going from the other end and his unbeaten knock of 67 helped Australia post 164 for 5 in their 20 overs.
In reply, Mitchell Starc started the defense with a pin-point yorker that was too good for the Oman opener Pratik Athavale.
Skipper Aqib Ilyas showed some fight but his knock was cut short by Stoinis who had a day to remember in Barbados. The all-rounder finished with figures of 3/19 from three overs.
Australian bowlers were just too good for Oman as five of their batters failed to get to double figures.
Starc, Nathan Ellis and Adam Zampa all picked up two wickets each. Josh Hazlewood and Glenn Maxwell went wicketless.
The only worrying sign for Australia in the match came in the 15th over of Oman’s innings as Starc hobbled off the field after receiving some treatment from the physio.
Stay tuned as we bring you the post-match coverage with awards and words from both captains.