On the eve of the match, Australia had promised to put their “best foot forward” in their fight to stay in the race for a semi-final spot in the T20 World Cup. On Thursday, they kept their word by blowing away Bangladesh in Dubai.

Leg-spinner Adam Zampa returned a career-best five-wicket haul in the shortest format as Australia recorded an eight-wicket win to keep themselves relevant in the tournament.

While Australia were top class, Bangladesh once again looked clueless. Their innings fell like a house of cards as neither the batters could contend with the Australian pacers nor they negotiated the spinners well. Result: 74 all out in 15 overs. They finished their Super 12 campaign without a single win, losing all five matches.

Zampa (5/19) showed good control over the ball throughout to trouble the batters. Fast bowlers Mitchell Starc (2/21) and Josh Hazlewood (2/8) shared four wickets between them while Glenn Maxwell (1/6) too scalped one.

Already out of the semi-final race, Bangladesh looked a defeated outfit right from the beginning of the game. They could not apply themselves even as the ball was coming nicely on to the bat.

Australia knocked off the required runs in just 6.2 overs.

Skipper Aaron Finch (40) and David Warner (18) added 58 runs in five overs for an explosive start. Then Mitchell Marsh (16 not out) took the side home. Australia now have six points, same as that of South Africa, but the massive win boosted their net run rate (1.031), which is now better than the Temba Bavuma-led side (0.742).

Tale of collapse

Starc provided the first wicket as Liton Das (0) dragged one back on to the stumps while Hazlewood got rid of Soumya Sarkar (5), who also played on to the stumps.

Maxwell trapped Mushfiqur Rahim (1) while Zampa had Afif Hossain (0) caught in the slip region. Hazlewood got his second victim in opener Mohammad Naim (17), who was caught by Pat Cummins at square leg when the batter miscued a pull shot.

Bangladesh were struggling at 33/5 and needed skipper Mamudullah and Shamim Hossain to repair the innings. Mahmudullah (16) found two boundaries off Starc while Shamim too took on the same pacer for his first boundary. Shamim also lofted Zampa confidently for a six over deep square leg. He was stroking the ball fluently but could not convert his good start into a substantial knock.

Zampa had the left-hander caught behind when he tried to play a cut shot and trapped Mahedi Hasan in the next ball to be on a hat-trick. When he returned to bowl, wicket-keeper Matthew Wade dropped a catch to deny his colleague the hat-trick milestone.

The skipper too departed soon with Starc spelling his ouster by having him caught behind, leaving Bangladesh at 65/8. That was a point of no return.

Finch happy

Finch was pleased with his side’s clinical performance. “Starc set the tone and Hazlewood followed with that in the second over. We thought we would take the opportunity to win big if we got the chance, but you can’t plan for that.

“At the half-way mark, we knew (we could get past South Africa),” said Finch. “When you have that opportunity, you have to take it. Zampa’s 5 for 19 was outstanding too.”

Bangladesh skipper Mahmudullah was at a loss for words trying to explain his team’s dismal show in the tournament.

“When you have these sort of performances, it is hard to say much. There are a lot of areas we have to look at, especially our batting. The wickets that we have played on have been among the best for batting. We have to figure out what went wrong when we go back to Bangladesh,” he said.