Australia kicked off their ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2024 campaign with a solid win against Oman on Wednesday, June 5 (local time) at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, Barbados. Australia had to work hard for their win as Oman kept challenging them at different points in the game, both with the bat and ball on a surface, that wasn't really conducive to free strokeplay. The one batter, who did something on those lines, ended up being the difference in the game, Marcus Stoinis.
Stoinis smashed an unbeaten 67 off 36 on a tricky surface, hitting a couple of boundaries and six 6s to help Australia get to a score of 164, which eventually proved to be par-plus. Apart from Stoinis, veteran opener David Warner also contributed 56 runs, even though he did take 51 balls for it. However, given the way the pitches have played, both in the USA and the Caribbean, strike rate won't matter a lot unless the team suffers specifically due to one or two such bad performances.
Warner was also involved in a few moments of the game. Whether it was Kaleemullah giving him the kicking send-off or Warner's former opening partner Aaron Finch acknowledging the left-hander for breaking his record of being the highest run-getter for Australia in T20Is or the highlight of the day, him almost entering the Oman dressing room.
Warner after getting dismissed by Kaleemullah forgot the way of his team's dressing room, and started going upstairs towards the Oman one. However, Warner all of a sudden realised that he was indeed going in the wrong direction and came back down before making his way to the right one.
The commentators on air, Pommy Mbangwa and Matthew Hayden couldn't stop laughing. Watch the video here:
Oman consistently lost their wickets through their batting innings and didn't get any momentum before Australia clinched the game and the two points.
