MELBOURNE: Australia have enough experience and versatility in their lineup to get into tournament-mode quickly for the Champions Trophy following a difficult buildup to the one-day international showpiece, according to opener Travis Head.
The injury-depleted 50-overs world champions go into their opener against England in Lahore on Saturday on the back of two stinging defeats away to Sri Lanka and no warmup matches in Pakistani conditions.
Australia’s bowling will rest largely on the shoulders of fringe pacemen and there is pressure on the inexperienced top order batting duo of Matthew Short and Jake Fraser-McGurk after each had twin failures in Sri Lanka.
Some players have not played much 50-over cricket recently, including Head, who played his first one-day international in over four months against Sri Lanka last week.
New Zealand beat Pakistan by 60 runs in ICC Champions Trophy opener
For all that, Head has backed the Steve Smith-captained squad to click when it counts on the field.
“There’s a few guys … who haven’t played a lot of white=ball cricket but those guys are pretty versatile,” he said.
“I feel like we’ll be in a good position, we’re experienced enough in that batting unit that the guys who have been playing red ball cricket can transition pretty well.
“We’re looking forward to that. We know the first game’s the most important in this format and this tournament and that’s where all our concentration is at the moment.”
Australia won back-to-back Champions Trophy titles in 2006-09 but were bundled out of the group stage in the last two tournaments in 2013 and 2017.
With South Africa and Afghanistan also playing in Group B, Australia can ill-afford to slip up against Jos Buttler’s England, who were thrashed 3-0 in their warmup series in India.
“We know that we need to use the next four days to prepare well to make sure we hit the ground running,” said Head.
“You don’t have the luxury of a World Cup with a lot of games to work into a tournament and navigate through and pinpoint games that may be more important than others.
“Here it’s pretty cut-throat, it’s pretty much a knockout.”
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