Australia have qualified for the Super Eights of the T20 World Cup 2024 after defeating Scotland by five wickets on Sunday at the Daren Sammy Cricket Ground.
Scotland’s all-rounder, Brandon McMullen, praised the Australian team for playing their trademark style in their last group stage match against Scotland.
"Not at all. I think Australia has a world-class cricket team. They have been for many, many years. They're always going to put out a good fight; they're never just going to walk over and let you win, so I'm glad that it was a close game today," McMullen said while addressing the post-match press-conference.
Despite losing, McMullen was happy that Scotland closely contested the game against Australia. The team did not qualify for the next stage of the tournament, but they played really well by making 180-5 within 20 overs in the first innings. McMullen solely scored 60 runs off 34 deliveries.
"We show that we can compete at this high level against the best players in the world, and again and again we showed tonight that no, we're not far away from beating the best in the world," McMullen added.
The all-rounder further said that it was disappointing as they played somereal good cricket in this tournament as a group and thebelief was super high going into today's game.
"We had a good start in the first half of the game and the first innings and we just couldn't quite back it up in the bowling," he said.
"I thought we bowled well at times. The first half was especially really good. And then you had a few big overs in that back end, which let us down. So unfortunately, it wasn't our day today, but I learned a lot from the game and the experience was incredible," McMullen concluded.
Meanwhile, Mitchell Marsh and Co played really well against Scotland and scored 186 for five within 19.4 overs. The left-handed batter Travis Head and right-handed batter Marcus Stoinis added 80 runs to help Australia chase down the target of 182 runs.
Australia will be playing their first match of the Super Eight on Friday (June 21); however, the opponent is yet to be decided.