Australia unceremoniously dumped from T20 World Cup

Dave Warner played his last innings for Australia. He just didn’t know it at the time.

Virat Kohli and Pat Cummins shake hands following the ICC Men's T20 Cricket World Cup. Picture: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

A WhatsApp message arrived from captain Mitch Marsh after Australia’s loss to India put Australia’s T20 World Cup campaign in peril. “Came up short and we’re in the lap of the gods now,” he wrote.

That was at 4.48am (AEST) on Tuesday. “Come on, Bangladesh,” Marsh had said in his post-match interview following the 24-run defeat at St Lucia. Thanks to a set of equations only Pythagoras might have properly understood, Australia could still sneak through to the final four if ye gods conjured a win for Bangladesh over Afghanistan in the game starting nearly six hours later.

“We’ve got to wait until late to find out,“ fast bowler Josh Hazlewood said as the Australians trudged back to the St Lucia’s Regina Bay Marina Hotel. “It would be nice for it to start at 1pm, but 8.30pm here is pretty late to sort of wait on pins and needles. I assume we’ll be pretty much together, watching that game and hoping for the best. We obviously can’t do anything other than what we’ve done. We’re hoping Bangladesh can get the job done. It’s disappointing, but who knows what happens tonight?”

David Warner walks out after being dismissed. Picture:Chandan Khanna / AFP

Afghanistan won a thriller at St Vincent. It was rainy, windy, so tense the moon could barely look. Every ball had ramifications. At one stage in the final over, Australia was in the semi-finals on percentages. Two balls later, Afghanistan had triumphed by eight runs and Marsh’s men were done and dusted. An Australian side that looked unbeatable on Sunday was eliminated just two days later.

Sub-par defeats to Afghanistan and India in a horror 48 hours were akin to taking your hand off the wheel and watching your previously reliable car skid and crash into a ditch. Everything had to go right for Australia to make the semi-finals but minute by minute, ball by ball, raindrop by raindrop, wicket by wicket, raucous Afghan celebration by raucous Afghan celebration, it all went hideously wrong for the dumbfounded and profoundly disappointed World Cup favourites.

“I guess it’s the nature of T20,” Hazlewood said. “You’ve got to be on your game every day that you turn up.”

David Warner and Virat Kohli. Picture: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

Elimination ended the 37-year-old Dave Warner’s mostly decorated time in an Australian shirt. He made just six runs in his final appearance, as far removed from a fairytale finish as a superstar athlete can get. “I’m well and truly done,” Warner said when confirming his retirement. There is truth in wine, they reckon, and Warner didn’t even know he was officially retired until late at night at the hotel bar. Where he might still be, raising a glass instead of the World Cup trophy Australia was expected to win.

“We’ll miss him,” Hazlewood said.