Starc could miss England clash after Stoinis stars in World Cup win

“There was no need to take unnecessary risks at this stage of the tournament,” Marsh said. “He said he’s fine, just a cramp for the old boy,” Marsh said.

“He wanted to finish off [his over] but when you look at the World Cup as a whole we’ve got a few games to go.”

Starc and Pat Cummins had 50-hour horror trips to Barbados after returning home from the IPL for a few days. Cummins was rested from this match but is expected to play against England, with Starc a likely candidate to swap out of the side.

Clever seamer Nathan Ellis played ahead of Cummins and claimed two wickets.

With Sunday’s match also at Kensington Oval, the Oman game was important match practice ahead of the England game on a slow, low and occasionally turning pitch.

Australia struggled to score at a run a ball, falling to 3-50 from 8.3 overs when Marsh (14 from 21 balls) and Glenn Maxwell fell from successive deliveries. Maxwell was caught at cover first ball driving, with the golden duck continuing his recent low scores after a poor IPL campaign.

It wasn’t until the 15th over, when Stoinis unleashed, that Australia took control of the match. He hit four sixes in the over from modest seamer Mehran Khan to swing the momentum.

Stoinis dominated a 102-run partnership in just 10.2 overs with David Warner, who scored 56 from 51 balls playing an uncharacteristic anchor role.

Along the way Warner passed Aaron Finch’s 3120 T20 international runs to become Australia’s most prolific batsman in the shortest form of the game. It cemented Warner’s standing as Australia’s finest three-format player.

“It was a nice start,” Stoinis said after the match. “Maybe a few cobwebs for us but we’ll be better for the run.”

Stoinis said the pitch wasn’t easy to bat on.

“There were a couple spinning, a couple not spinning, a couple keeping low,” he said.

Stoinis and Warner discussed increasing the run rate going into what became the pivotal 15th over.

“Davey and I talked about targeting the first couple of balls and when you hit a couple of balls for a boundary you think, ‘well, I may as well try and turn this into a big over.’”