Australia hunt for historic treble

BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, June 05 (Agencies): With the World Test Championship mace and the 50-over World Cup trophy already in its bag, Australia will look to hit the ground running in its quest to become the first team to simultaneously hold all three world titles when it takes on Oman in its T20 World Cup opener on Thursday.
To accomplish the feat, the former champion will rely on its wealth of experience, with several of Australia's greatest modern-era players, preparing for their final farewell in international colours.
The T20 trophy evaded Australia for the longest time but the maiden title in 2021 changed that. However, a year later, it failed to progress from the league stage on home soil.
Australia has no dearth of match-winners in its squad, starting from newly-appointed skipper Mitchell Marsh. The all-rounder will be a key factor batting at No.3. Travis Head has been in red-hot form and was the side's star performer in the WTC final and ODI World Cup final.
Australia might experiment in the group stage to find its best XI. Leg-spinner Adam Zampa will play a crucial role while left-arm spinner Ashton Agar is also expected to be in the mix.
The ever-reliable trio of Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins and Josh Hazlewood will run the pace unit.
The 15-player squad includes nine from the XI that lined up in the T20 World Cup final three years ago when Australia broke New Zealand hearts to clinch what remains the men's only triumph from eight attempts. The concern is that much the same group of players were unable to hit similar heights when failing to progress past the group stage on home soil a year later. Travis Head and Nathan Ellis are the only fresh faces this time around.
Australia resisted the urge to include young tyro Jake Fraser-McGurk in the squad for his senior tournament and T20I debuts, but Head has already proven to be the most critical addition to the first-choice XI in all formats. The 30-year-old's swashbuckling batting led Australia to victory - and earned him player of the match awards - in the World Test Championship and ODI World Cup finals last year, and it would be little surprise if he made a similar impact throughout this T20 campaign.
Meanwhile, Oman lost its opening game against Namibia. While it did a commendable job with the ball by taking the match into the Super Over, the batters will have to be more responsible if the side wants to pull off an upset win over the mighty Australians.