Australia are on the brink of a humiliating World Cup exit. They deserve it

If this Australian side goes through to the next phase of the Twenty20 World Cup it will do so by luck alone.

There was certainly very little merit in a resounding defeat by Sri Lanka in Kandy, where the weaknesses of the team and its patched-together nature were there for all to see – that’s if anyone at home was actually watching.

Heavy criticism will go the way of the team, and the selectors. Leaving Steve Smith on the outer after the work he’s done to improve his T20 game, then dropping Matt Renshaw after two scores, certainly looks difficult to justify.

Finally given a strong start with the bat by Travis Head (56) and the fit-again skipper Mitch Marsh (54), Australia flew past 0-100 inside nine overs. But Head’s exit opened up a batting order that, based on what followed, looked rather like the longest tail in the tournament.

All 10 wickets went down for 77, with only Josh Inglis and Glenn Maxwell passing 20. It might have been even worse: both gave early chances.

Sri Lanka had lost paceman Matheesha Pathirana mid-match with a calf problem, but even that seemed a stroke of fortune for the hosts. On recent evidence, Australia would dearly have preferred to see more pace than spin.

Three of the key breaks were made by the modest wrist spinner Dushan Hemantha, who defeated Head, Marsh and Maxwell, after being clouted for 45 from four overs by Oman in his only previous bowling stint of the Cup.

“I guess we’ll never know what would have happened if we made 220, but we had a good platform, but we just weren’t able to execute towards the back end,” Marsh said. “It’s disappointing. [I’m] certainly not here to blame anyone, but yeah, we’re a disappointed bunch.

“I know that in these conditions, 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.”

Cameron Green failed to have an impact once again, Tim David was unable to make the most of an elevated position at number four, and neither Marsh nor Head hung around to make a score that was match-shaping rather than merely useful. None for 104 duly became 4-130, then 5-160 dematerialised to 181 all out.

Watching on the boundary were Smith, a late injury call-up to the squad, and Renshaw, dropped despite being Australia’s top scorer over the first two games. As the wickets fell thick and fast, both had good reason to feel hard done by. So too Matt Kuhnemann, the left-arm spinner replaced by Cooper Connolly.

This meant Sri Lanka were chasing 182 to win rather than something like 220, when Australia’s batting was considered the stronger suit. They did it easily.

With Mitchell Starc retired from the format and Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood getting themselves fit for the Indian Premier League to follow, Australia’s bowling attack was mediocre.

Sitting back at home, where he and Cummins are raking in the cash as “ambassadors” for the World Cup rights holders Amazon Prime, Starc had anointed Nathan Ellis as the new attack leader. Adam Zampa, meanwhile, has been Australia’s leading T20 spin bowler for years.

But in conditions markedly better for batting than in Colombo, Ellis and Zampa were pummeled for 73 from seven wicketless overs between them. With that kind of treatment meted out to the attack leaders, there were unlikely to be any miracles from elsewhere.

Australia’s conqueror was Pathum Nissanka, with a sparkling unbeaten century from 52 balls.

“They’re certainly our two most experienced players,” Marsh said of Ellis and Zampa. “No doubt we went to them whenever we were under pressure. I haven’t had a chance to really think about how they played tonight in terms of tactics and stuff or how to look at it, but they played well.

“We weren’t able to take as many wickets and apply as much pressure as we would have liked to. And I thought tonight Nissanka just played brilliantly, and take our situation and our team out of it.

“You take your hat off to someone when they score 100 off 50 balls in a World Cup match in a tight run chase at this stage of our group. So yeah, I take my hat off to him. And it was an incredible innings. And we didn’t have many answers for him tonight.”

There had been something of a preview for this result a year ago, when the ODI team was belted twice in a pair of games in Colombo following a 2-0 victory in the Test series.

Then, as now, the Australian white-ball team looked like an afterthought to Test match battles, and to the T20 franchise circuit.

“I think it is still technically possible. There’s still a chance,” said skipper Marsh, invoking Dumb and Dumber in reference to the fact that a win by Ireland over Zimbabwe on Wednesday might allow his team to sneak through, provided Sri Lanka then also beat Zimbabwe.

“I dare say that we’ll all be watching it. Whether or not it’s together or not, we’ll wait and see. But yeah, what do you say? The luck of the Irish.”

It is often said that sporting teams make their own luck by capitalising on opportunities. This Australian T20 campaign has not earned any.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.