T20 World Cup: Mitchell Marsh backs Australia to ‘stand up in big moments' after sloppy fielding against Scotland

North Sound (Antigua), June 20

Australia skipper Mitchell Marsh has expressed confidence in his players to ‘stand up in big moments’ following criticism for sloppy fielding against Scotland in their last group match of the T20 World Cup, which saw the former champions spilling half a dozen catches.

Australia will take on Bangladesh in their Super Eight match here on Friday with the focus being on their fielding after a lacklustre show against Scotland with Marsh himself dropping three catches.

Even though Australia won by five wickets, their reputation took a bit of a beating and Marsh put his hand up in admitting the errors. “It was obviously not our best effort in the field. I think I dropped three of the catches, so I take the brunt of that,” he said during a media interaction.

“But the thing we speak about, is that we’ve got a lot of trust in our group. We had an off night in the field and this group loves to stand up in big moments and they all start now — so I’ve got a lot of trust in the group,” Marsh added.

Marsh has struggled with a hamstring injury he suffered during the Indian Premier League in April, which forced him to head home for rehabilitation. But the skipper said if the need arises, he will be available for sharing bowling workload.

“I’ll be available to bowl. With the line-up that we’ve got, I don’t really necessarily see a need for me to bowl, but it’s really important in this format to have options and we’re blessed with plenty of those,” he said.

“Physically, (I) feel good. It’s always nice to have a bit of break from bowling and I often joke about that, but yeah, (Marcus) Stoinis and I often talk about it as all-rounders — we love being in the game. As I said before, it’s really important in this format with some of the teams that are coming up against us to have as many options as we possibly can.”

Marsh said he would draw a lot of confidence with the unbeaten 177 he scored against Bangladesh in the ODI World Cup in India last year.

Australia had eased to an eight-wicket win against Bangladesh, chasing down 307 with 32 balls to spare with Marsh doing most of the power hitting.

“It’s a fond memory, but this is a different format in a different country and pretty different conditions. That was a beautiful week at Pune (ODI World Cup match against Bangladesh), but we’re obviously looking forward to the challenge of playing against Bangladesh, that’s for sure,” he said.

“We’re really proud of the way we’ve gone about it to get to this point and there’s a lot of good cricket teams left in this tournament, so we’re certainly excited to get started in the Super 8s.”