Australia vs Zimbabwe, 19th Match, Group B, ICC Men's T20 World Cup 2026 - Commentary

A massive day for Zimbabwe and this result could have big ramifications as far as Group B is concerned. As things stand, Sri Lanka and Zimbabwe have 4 points each, Australia are third with two with Ireland and Oman yet to open their account. The next round of matches here will see the group toppers in action once again. Few more twists coming up for sure. The second match is about to get underway with Canada batting first against the UAE. Change tabs and enjoy all the action. For now, cheers and bye..

Sikandar Raza: (2/2) Yeah, certainly. So first of all, we've only got 13 able bodies in the squad and then I went down. Cremer has got a slight split webbing, but nothing serious. We even asked Dion Ebrahim to put the kit on in case we need him. But I think Zimbabwe cricket is looking into the replacements and things like that. I'm sure they'll be here for the next game because ideally in these conditions, you don't know what's going to happen, so you want 15 able bodies available for selection at every given time. Yeah, certainly. I'll allow the boys to enjoy it and I think they deserve to enjoy it today. But for me and the coach, I think the homework for the next game starts. We've got a travelling day tomorrow, so that's about it. And then we've got another day off and we've got a game while we have a chance. But we don't need to change anything if we keep the same processes while we know where we stand. It's a great position to be at. But let's just take one game at a time, exactly what we said at the start. And we're going to take one game at a time and see where that takes us. Where we are is a great position, but it doesn't guarantee anything. So the next game becomes the most important game for Zimbabwe now.

Sikandar Raza: (1/2) No, I've been here before. I mean, I know in Sri Lanka, this is not the first time that's happened, but sometimes, you know, just the pressure of the game and leading a side, the workload and everything, these things can happen. But all I can tell you is, these are just cramps. I know over the next day or two with good recovery, it should be fine. Yeah, certainly, you know. I'm very happy, but above all, I'm very proud, a feeling of a brother who has his younger brother that's achieving a lot together. So it was nice to watch from outside and see how the team went about their business, the culture, the environment, the unity that we have taken, that we have created over a long time. Just to see it from outside, I was extremely proud, and on top of that, a win. It's just unbelievable. 70 on at 10, and we said we're happy. And I know somebody said in the changing room that, yeah, 190 is on, and I said, no. If you look for 190 now, it is 140 all-out. And then just keep going at 8s and 9s and see what happens because over the time and even from the previous tours we've been to Sri Lanka, we understand the wicket starts to get slower and lower, and the moment you try and go too hard too early, I mean, the cluster of wickets fell. So we sent a message to Benny that he's doing a great job. It doesn't matter if he's trying and he's not hitting, he doesn't have to basically panic. As long as he's there, we'll get to a good total. I thought 175 is what we were looking for, but ended up maybe a few dots. But the way we came and the way we bowled, the way we started, the way we fielded every catch, some of the boundary stops, it's just unbelievable. I mean, there's nothing to fault the boys for. It looked like the boys wanted it, and I think they really did and they deserved to win today.

Travis Head: (2/2) The feedback throughout was it was a good wicket. We put ourselves under pressure, obviously losing wickets in the power play. And like I said, put some pressure and the scoreboard rate went up. We, I guess, found a partnership through the middle, but probably left ourselves a little bit too many and that happens. So, it's disappointing, but that's the game. We've been here before. We said at the toss a little bit about having injuries and working through tournament play, which is typical. And we're seeing a lot of tight games. All the teams are very good. And yeah, we've found ourselves in this position before. We had a few guys in that dressing room who were here in India in 2023 (WC) that navigated through that and we ended up on the right side of it. So, we'll go back to the blueprint of that to keep as much confidence in the dressing room as possible and two more games to win.

Travis Head: (1/2) Yeah, we thought it was a good wicket. It was a little bit tacky at the start. We thought it was going to be pretty even throughout the whole contest and I think it showed that it was. I thought we did ok although we'd taken only two wickets in our innings, I felt like it was still probably under-par. So, felt like it came on really well in the second innings. We lost wickets. The first half was under pressure. They played well, like I said, I still felt like if you gave us that score after winning the toss and applying off it did, I think we'd take the score. So, I don't think, like you look back and there's no over here or there that you might do differently or switch around, but I felt like we worked through it well and we were on the score that we would have been happy to chase.

Blessing Muzarabani | Player of the match - Yeah, I think one of those, because I was bowling to one of the best players in the world (on bowling to Travis Head). So I was really happy that today really came off really nice. The good thing, I saw the boundary, it was in my favour. So I just had to use the boundary and the wicket was really slow as well. So I just had to adjust. I also believe that everyone really bowled well. And everyone else, you know, came in for the team. So yes, we missed Richi (Ngarava), but Brad (Evans) really bowled well. Especially when you're tall, it's sometimes really hard to really know that yorker, but sometimes you just try and look for whatever is working on the day. Yes, it's really good (to beat Australia), but it's also nice to qualify (for the Super-8). So we'll be thinking about the next step.

Stats by Shashikant Singh

Zimbabwe seamers in this WC (by length)
Full (Less than 6m): 4/21, 23 balls, ER: 5.47
Good (6-8m): 2/18, 32 balls, ER: 3.37
Short (More than 8m): 10/57, 67 balls, ER: 5.10

Zimbabwe’s wins across formats vs Australia
By 13 runs (ODI), Trent Bridge, 1983 WC (c: Duncan Fletcher)
By 5 wkts (T20I), Cape Town, 2007 WC (c: Prosper Utseya)
By 3 wkts (ODI), Harare, 2014 (c: Elton Chigumbura)
By 3 wkts (ODI), Townsville, 2022 (c: Regis Chakabva)
By 23 runs (T20I), Colombo RPS, 2026 WC (c: Sikandar Raza)*

Zimbabwe's wins vs other FM teams at T20 WC
vs AUS, Cape Town, 2007
vs IRE, Hobart, 2022
vs PAK, Perth, 2022
vs AUS, Colombo, 2026*

Zimbabwe is the only team with a 100% win-record over Australia in the Men's T20 WC.

100-plus wickets for ZIM in T20Is
111 - Richard Ngarava
103 - Sikandar Raza
100 - Blessing Muzarabani

4/17 by Muzarabani is the best bowling figures for Zimbabwe in a T20 WC match.

This is also the second-best bowling figures against Australia in a T20 WC match behind 4/11 by R Ashwin in Mirpur in the 2014 edition.

14:39 Local Time, 09:09 GMT, 14:39 IST: Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe - Colombo's RPS is filled with happy Zimbabwean faces even as the Australian supporters can't fathom at how their team has lost this game. They were asked to bat, they scrambled along to 169 for 2 and that score was good enough to give them a 23-run win. Blessing Muzarabani and Brad Evans were superb with the new-ball as they sliced through Australia's top-order. Inglis was caught in the deep, Green and Tim Davies bagged ducks and Travis Head dragged one back onto the stumps to leave them at 29 for 4. Glenn Maxwell (31) and Matt Renshaw (65) added 77 for the 5th wicket and brought their team back into the game. Zimbabwe lost skipper Sikandar Raza to cramps and the moment seemed to have been lost. But Ryan Burl came to fill an over and he castled Maxwell, Stoinis -  who braved an injury earlier in the day was dismissed cheaply and the lower-order fell away even as the required rate soared.  Renshaw kept fighting, but Evans and Muzarabani came back to apply the finishing touches. A famous day in the annals of Zimbabwe cricket, they assessed the conditions better, they played the better cricket and they walk away with two points in the bag. 

Brad Evans to Matthew Kuhnemann, THATS OUT!! Run Out!!

Blessing Muzarabani to Adam Zampa, THATS OUT!! Bowled!!