Hyderabad/Lucknow: Perhaps for the first time in the history of the World Cup, Australia, who dominated an era in men's cricket, and have won the Cricket World Cup for a record five times, are reeling at the bottom of the table.
While sport is fun, sport can also be cruel at times and this must have been experienced by Pat Cummins and his team as they suffered two successive defeats, against India at Chennai and against South Africa at Lucknow in the ongoing World Cup. Australia will need a win to remain in contention for a semi-final berth against Sri Lanka in Lucknow today.
A major upset occurred in this World Cup on Sunday night when Afghanistan stunned defending champions England at the Kotla in New Delhi and suddenly the group has become wide open.
Australia are at the 10th position in the points table comprising 10 teams and the so-called mighty Aussies have been embarrassed.
Not only this match, but all the matches from here on are like the final for us, Australia skipper Pat Cummins said on the eve of the side's match against Sri Lanka, who have suffered a major blow as their regular skipper Dasun Shanaka has been ruled out.
The Australia versus Sri Lanka game will begin at 2 PM this afternoon at the Atal Bihari Vajpayee Ekana Stadium in Lucknow.
Australia has multiple match-winners like opener David Warner, solid middle-order batters like Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne, explosive batter like Glenn Maxwell, and pacers including Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, and Pat Cummins and spinner Adam Zampa.