Mitchell Starc may not play against England on Sunday after leaving the field during Australia’s Twenty20 World Cup victory in their opening game against Oman at Kensington Oval, Barbados.
Australia’s strike bowler favoured his left calf after delivering the first ball of his fourth over and sat out the remainder of the match as Australia went on to win by 39 runs on Thursday.
Marcus Stoinis was player of the match, turning the game with a brilliant 66 from 35 balls, including five sixes, as Australia struggled on the slow, dry surface. Stoinis then claimed three wickets as Oman struggled to 9-125 in reply to Australia’s 5-164.
Captain Mitchell Marsh said Starc had suffered cramp. Australia don’t need to play him on Sunday against England. Australia and England are the only two Test nations in their group and both are expected to go through to the Super Eight stage of the tournament ahead of Oman, Namibia and Scotland.
“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.”
Mitchell Starc was forced to leave the field after favouring his left calf.Credit: Getty
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.
Marcus Stoinis scored 66 from just 35 balls.Credit: AP
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.’”