T20 World Cup 2026: ‘We’re confident with the group that we’ve got here’ – Mitchell Marsh not worried about Starc, Cummins, Hazlewood’s absence

2021 T20 World Cup champions Australia are entering the ongoing edition of the global event without their experienced seam-bowling trio of Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood, and Mitchell Starc. However, skipper Mitchell Marsh is confident with the bowlers he has at his disposal.

Cummins, Hazlewood, and Starc have been tormenting batting line-ups across the three formats of international cricket for many years now. However, the 2026 T20 World Cup will not feature any of the three fast-bowling stalwarts. While Starc retired from T20Is last year, Cummins and Hazlewood lost the race against time to get fit for the marquee event.

Cummins decided to prioritise the red-ball format and preserve his body for its demands. Meanwhile, Hazlewood was deemed not to attain match fitness even by the time the Super 8 phase started.

The onus is now on Nathan Ellis to spearhead the Aussie bowling attack, while the likes of Xavier Bartlett and Ben Dwarshuis will have to give him adequate support.

“Yeah, look, guys like Paddy have played a lot for us over the last few years due to his hectic schedule and over the last 12 months guys like Benny Dwarshuis and Xavier Bartlett have played pretty much all of our games. So we’ve got great confidence that they’ve been able to do a role for us, and they’ve excelled in some games. So we’re confident with the group that we’ve got here. And we’ve built that for the last 12 months,” said Marsh in the pre-match press conference ahead of their clash against Ireland.

The opening batter said that Australia were able to give the core group of players sufficient game time over the last 12 months, helping them prepare for challenges they may encounter during the ongoing T20 World Cup.

“We’ve sort of built out a squad of maybe 18 to 20 people that have played over the last 12 months and we’ve got game time to all of them. They’ve all faced different situations in matches and whilst some of them haven’t played a lot for Australia, they’ve played a lot of cricket and we’ve got great confidence that they’re going to be able to do the job for us,” said Marsh.

Australia will start their T20 World Cup 2026 campaign against Ireland at the R. Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Wednesday, February 11.

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