South Africa
\nAustralia captain Pat Cummins admitted on Sunday that the five-time champions have \u201cgot to start winning and start winning quick\u201d to rescue their faltering World Cup campaign.
\nAustralia have lost both their opening matches, by six wickets to hosts India and 134 runs to South Africa, their heaviest defeat at a World Cup.
\nDespite boasting the batting firepower of David Warner and Steve Smith, they have yet to post a total of 200.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re obviously 0-2, so we\u2019ve got to start winning and start winning quick,\u201d said Cummins ahead of Monday\u2019s clash against Sri Lanka in Lucknow.
\n\u201cEvery game now becomes almost like a final. You\u2019ve got to win just about all of them,\u201d he said.
\nThe figures so far make for grim reading for Australia.
\nNone of their batsmen have made a half-century with Smith top-scoring with 46 against India and Marnus Labuschagne matching that modest mark in the rout by South Africa.
\nThey have also been hamstrung by their fielding performances.
\nAgainst India, Virat Kohli was dropped on 12 before he went on to make a match-winning 85.
\nHad the catch been taken, India, chasing just 200 to win, would have been teetering at 20-4.
\nIt got worse against South Africa where five chances went down.
\nNeeding 312 to win, Australia slumped to 70-6 and were reduced to a damage limitation exercise in an effort to shore up their run rate.
\n\u201cNo doubt we haven\u2019t been up to the standard that we like to hold,\u201d said Cummins.
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve been off the mark and been outplayed [in] both games. It\u2019s not ideal at all. I think everyone was a little bit flat after the last game,\u201d he added.
\nAustralia are second from bottom of the 10-team table, behind even the Netherlands and propped up only by Afghanistan.
\nOn Monday, they tackle fellow winless side Sri Lanka who have had no problems scoring runs \u2014 326 against South Africa and 344 in the game with Pakistan.
\nUnfortunately for the 1996 champions, they conceded a World Cup record 428 to the Proteas while Pakistan\u2019s pursuit to win by six wickets was the highest successful chase in tournament history.
\nSri Lanka came out on top 3-2 in a five-match series with Australia on home soil in June last year.
\nHowever, Australia eased to a comfortable 87-run win when the sides met at the 2019 World Cup at The Oval.
\n\u201cLooking back at 2019, India and South Africa were the two teams that we lost to in the round games there,\u201d added Cummins.
\n\u201cI think in the last year, they\u2019re kind of the two teams that we\u2019ve had the most trouble against.
\n\u201cSo the opportunity now is we\u2019ve got some teams we haven\u2019t played for a while that we\u2019ve had a lot of success against and we can be really confident when we go out there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa Australia captain Pat Cummins admitted on Sunday that the five-time champions have \u201cgot to start winning and start winning quick\u201d to rescue their faltering World Cup campaign. Australia have lost both their opening matches, by six wickets to hosts India and 134 runs to South Africa, their heaviest defeat at a World Cup. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361936,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-361912","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"yoast_head":"\n