After Australia vs England Super 12s match was abandoned due to rain at the MCG, the road to the semifinals of the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2022 became tough for the defending champions.
Australia is now in the fourth spot with three points with a win and a loss in the points table, and now the hosts have to win their two remaining Super 12 matches against Ireland (October 31) and Afghanistan (November 4) to make it to the top four of the T20 World Cup 2022.
Ahead of their must-win match on Monday, Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell said that his team is currently in a similar position to that of their last year's victorious campaign in the UAE, and he was confident that they would make the semi-finals again with victories in their last two matches.
Notably, Australia thrashed Bangladesh and West Indies in their last two group matches to qualify for the semifinals and went on to win their maiden T20 World Cup title in the UAE last year.
As reported by Reuters, Glenn Maxwell told reporters: “We've got Ireland and Afghanistan. If we can do our job during those two games and try and win those comfortably. It's pretty similar to where we were last year when we were waiting for the last couple of games to see if we were going to make the top two.”
The star all-rounder added, “We've just got to make sure that we can stop the opposition from having that effect, and then for our own players, we're trying to have that effect on the game.”
Meanwhile, the net run rate is likely to finalize the top two sides from the group, but Maxwell insisted that Australia's immediate focus is on winning the remaining two matches, not the NRR.
Maxwell signed off by saying, “If you go into the match thinking about net run rate, it can make it really difficult. Looking back to West Indies and Bangladesh games last year ... before the game, there was not any talk about net run rate. Once we got into a really strong position ... then the conversation can start about 'OK, let's try to do this really fast.’”
(With Reuters Inputs)
