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How focused is Australia? Cummins forgot he’d taken a hat-trick

How focused is Australia? Cummins forgot he’d taken a hat-trick

Instead it was the batters feeling the need to get on with things after a turgid start, allowing Zampa and Cummins to capitalise on a series of mistakes.

Zampa’s 2-24 put him in second place on the tournament’s list of leading wicket-takers, while Cummins rejoiced in a hat-trick that was his third in cricket but first for Australia: Ashton Agar and Nathan Ellis have also taken hat-tricks in T20 internationals.

“I think I got one in grade cricket, maybe fourth grade, and I think I got one in second XI when I was 17,” Cummins said. “It was the first ball of the last over and it was Joe Burns and I went to bowl a slower ball and he ducked underneath it and it hit the bail on the full.”

Among the Bangladesh batters, only Hridoy showed the required intent with a 28-ball innings of 40, his third significant knock of the tournament. After the game, the Bangladesh skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto suggested that his team’s tally was some 30 runs short of par.

The contrast was marked with Head and Warner, who barely took a sighter before they set about the bowling with murderous focus.

The opening powerplay was worth 59, before rain arrived in the seventh over with the Australians having almost doubled their run rate requirement at the time. Play resumed just before overs would start to be lost, and the interruption helped the wrist spinner Rishad Hossain find a way past Head and then Marsh.

David Warner brought up his second 50 of the T20 World Cup with a six.Credit: Getty Images

Even these wickets, however, proved helpful for Australia because they allowed a previously out of sorts Maxwell to find the middle of the bat on several occasions at the other end to Warner’s second 50 of the tournament.

When the rain returned with greater intensity, Warner and Maxwell had pushed the tally to 2-100 inside 12 overs, leaving the showers to ultimately confirm a wide winning margin that put Australia on top of their group.

”We’ve ticked off everything we could possibly do so far,” Cummins said. “Tonight was a fairly polished performance, which is what you want in the Super Eights, two points but also good to get a good run rate. It feels like over the course of the tournament so far, almost everyone has got a game.

“We’ve been pretty open that anyone in the squad is ready to play and the bowling lineup might change at different times, the batting order might change and things like that, so we’ve got to be adaptable.”