MELBOURNE, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Australia's group-stage exit from the T20 World Cup stands as one of the most calamitous campaigns in the team’s limited-overs history and a rebuild looms for the former white ball titans.
Having entered the global showpiece with injuries, players out of form and scant preparations, Mitchell Marsh's team were embarrassed by Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka before a washed-out match sealed their elimination on Tuesday.
Once respected for their big-tournament prowess, the 2021 champions and six-times 50-over World Cup winners appeared bereft without the leadership and bowling quality of their big three pacemen, with Mitchell Starc retired from T20 internationals and Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood sidelined with injuries.
The Australians are now left with a dead rubber against cricket minnows Oman and plenty of questions from former players and pundits over selections and team management.
"Massive challenges lie ahead and this campaign spells out in big bold pen that Australia is not as well stocked as it thinks it is," local cricket writer Robert Craddock wrote in the Courier Mail on Wednesday.
OLYMPIC AMBITIONS
Australia host the next T20 World Cup in 2028 but will be eyeing a bigger prize a few months before that when cricket is reintroduced to the Olympics in LA.
While the final qualifying system for the six-nation Olympic tournament is yet to be signed off, Australia have done themselves no favours.
World rankings are expected to decide automatic qualifying and Australia's will take a hit from their early elimination.
Oceania rivals New Zealand, who qualified for the World Cup's Super Eight phase, will be emboldened and may end up in a position to snatch Australia's spot at the Games.
In the meantime, Australia will confront what appears to be a sign of their sporting mortality as a slew of their ageing champions struggle for fitness and approach the end of their careers.
Hazlewood has been sidelined for months after Achilles and hamstring injuries, while test and ODI captain Cummins played only a single Ashes test since the West Indies tour in mid-2025 while struggling with a lower back problem.
Master batter Steve Smith, drafted into the World Cup squad as a late injury replacement but not picked for a game, has declared he wants an Olympic medal in LA.
But he will be 39 when the Games start.
Other senior players are of a similar vintage, including all-rounders Marcus Stoinis and Glenn Maxwell, who have been mainstays of Australia's white-ball dominance.
While selectors have made efforts to bring in a new generation of players, few have performed at a consistently high level for fans to feel assured about the future.
The pace trio of Nathan Ellis, Ben Dwarshuis and Xavier Bartlett have come in for rough treatment from batters at the World Cup, while all-rounder Cooper Connolly's miserable run with the bat continued in Sri Lanka.
T20 cricket has never been Australia's biggest priority, and their early exit from the World Cup may not trigger the kind of root-and-branch review that an Ashes defeat would bring.
However, with the Olympics and a home World Cup on the horizon, Australia has no choice but to kick off a rebuild for a white ball team whose aura has all but disappeared.
(Reporting by Ian Ransom in Melbourne; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)
