Durban, Sep 4 (FN Bureau) Australia have issued a warning ahead of the ICC Men’s Cricket World Cup with a clinical 3-0 sweep over South Africa in their T20I series here.The five-time World Cup champions confirmed the series sweep with yet another dominant performance on Sunday as they cruised to a five-wicket victory on the back of a career-best T20I innings of 91 from opener Travis Head. Head was adjudged Player of the Match after he smashed eight fours and six sixes during an entertaining 48-ball stay, as Australia chased down South Africa’s decent total of 190/8 with more than two overs remaining.Head was last month named in Australia’s preliminary World Cup squad for this year’s 50-over showcase and the left-hander showed he could play a big part at the event with his maiden T20Ihalf-century against the Proteas, an ICC report said. “It’s nice to be back and contributing,” Head said. “There’s been limited opportunities in this format for a while.
I’d been struggling a little bit to find my tempo and how I wanted to go about it at the top,” he said. All-rounder Mitch Marsh was named Player of the Series for his 186 runs and the Australia captain could also play a big role in his side’s World Cup push in India if he can replicate the hard-hittingform he showed against South Africa. The series was Marsh’s first as Australia’s new T20I captain and the 31-year-old was thrilled his side could ease to a comfortable series triumph. “I’m really proud of a pretty young group coming over here and winning the series 3-0,” Marsh said.”We had a great team effort. We prepared really well, and we took the game on,” he said. “We had a bit of luck at times, but as a team we had the mentality of being really positive,”Marsh added.While South Africa badly missed the services of pace duo Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje throughout the series, white-ball coach Rob Walter was making no excuses for his side’s below-par performances.”There’s no running away from it – their batting skill was better than what we had to offer with the ball,” Walter said.”We got a hard lesson in terms of not executing our skills. It was an eye-opener for the bowling unit,”he added.The teams will now get some valuable 50-over practice ahead of the World Cup when they play a five-match ODI series in South Africa over the next fortnight. The first match of that series will beheld in Bloemfontein on Thursday.