NEW DELHI: Australian batter Matt Renshaw refused to blame the slow R Premadasa Stadium surface for their 23-run defeat to Zimbabwe in the T20 World Cup, saying teams touring Australia from the sub-continent never complain about pace and bounce when playing Down Under.

Renshaw’s 44-ball 65 went in vain as Australia were bowled out for 146, finding it difficult to up the tempo against Zimbabwe’s disciplined bowling attack.

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“I think that's just the nature of cricket. You get a sub-continent team come to Australia and you don't get them complaining about the bounce or the pace,” Renshaw said at the post-match press conference.

“It's just the way that cricket is nowadays. You've got to be able to go through different surfaces.”

Adapting to different wickets

Renshaw does not believe adjusting to slower pitches after playing on hard and bouncy Australian tracks during the Big Bash League was a major issue.

“Yes, the wickets in Australia during Big Bash are quite true - they get a lot of bounce. You go to India, and if in the other side of the tournament, there's different wickets, there's probably higher scores, shorter boundaries.

“The boundaries here (Premadasa) are quite big so it's just cricket. But yeah, it's probably just trying to adjust the conditions as well as we can so that when we get to these conditions we know what the game plan is, we know how we get best suited,” Renshaw said.

Credit to Zimbabwe

He credited Zimbabwe’s bowlers for sticking to their plans and making a 170-run target look tougher than it appeared.

“Yeah, probably makes it quite tough to chase 170 out there. They bowled really well at the start, took some early wickets, and felt like every time we built some momentum that partnership with Maxi (Glenn Maxwell) was obviously important but couldn't get enough momentum in there to chase that down and it was just too many to knock.”

An enforcer like Marcus Stoinis was forced to bat at No. 7 due to a finger injury sustained while fielding, but Renshaw said that could not be used as an excuse for the defeat, admitting Australia were simply outplayed.

“Probably Marcus Stoinis was going to bat higher, he got that hit on the finger, we don't know how bad it is, I'm sure the medical staff will treat that, but yeah that was the one today but yeah we just weren't good enough today.

“They played really well, they batted really well, got 170 on the board, had wickets in hand to launch at the end and took early wickets. So it's always tough in a T20 when that happens,” Renshaw added.

(With PTI Inputs)