Australia's World Cup prep unclear after record defeat

Acting captain Matthew Wade says he's unsure if a full-strength Australian side will play any warm-up games together ahead of this year's T20 World Cup as he lamented a record defeat to Bangladesh in Dhaka.

Chasing Bangladesh's 8-122, Australia lost 8-24 to be bowled out for 62 in just 13.4 overs and crash to a 60-run defeat in their series' fifth and final match on Monday.

Australia's previous lowest score in the format was the 79 they scored against England in Southampton in 2005 in what was just the second T20I ever played.

The 4-1 series loss in Bangladesh was the same result as last month's T20I games in the West Indies.

Australia have now lost five successive T20I series and won just six of their past 21 matches.

Apart from Mitchell Marsh (156 runs at 31.20), no Australian scored more than 57 runs in the Bangladesh series.

"There's not a lot of positives to take out of it obviously," Wade said.

"To get beaten in the fashion we did was not good for an Australian cricket team regardless of the personnel we've got here.

"I do not blame the younger players one bit.

"Myself, Moises Henriques, Dan Christian – we're all experienced players and we needed to do better in these conditions. I'm certainly not hiding behind that, I need to be better as well."

Australia were missing the majority of their first-choice players for the series including Pat Cummins, Glenn Maxwell, Steve Smith and David Warner while captain Aaron Finch also missed the Bangladesh leg of the tour due to a knee injury.

Smith, Warner and Cummins haven't played a T20I since last year and it remains to be seen if the Australians will play any further warm-up games together before the World Cup starts on October 17.

There have been reports of a series of games against Afghanistan and possibly more against Windies, which would enable a full-strength Australian side to fine tune their strategies ahead of the World Cup.

But with venues in the UAE and Oman being used for the rescheduled Indian Premier League in September and India still recording more than 35,000 daily cases of the coronavirus, finding a suitable host for the series could be problematic.

Wade said he wouldn't be concerned if Australia didn't have any more lead-up matches ahead of the World Cup, which is the only major tournament Australia's men's team has never won.

"I'm not 100 per cent sure what's happening in terms of our preparation for the World Cup," he said.

"But in terms of Finch, Warner, Maxwell, Smith – those guys, it's not vital that we all play games together before the World Cup.

"We've all played plenty of cricket together, we've grown up together – Warner, Finchy, myself, we've all grown up in the same team.

"Our bowling unit have bowled together numerous times.

"So I don't think the difference between playing well in the World Cup or not is playing a lot of games together to know what each other is doing – we all know what we're doing.

"We've played together for long, long periods of time. Whatever happens with our preparation going forward, that won't be an excuse by the time we get to the World Cup."

Qantas Tour of Bangladesh 2021

Australia squad: Ashton Agar, Wes Agar, Jason Behrendorff, Alex Carey, Dan Christian, Nathan Ellis, Josh Hazlewood, Moises Henriques, Mitchell Marsh, Ben McDermott, Riley Meredith, Josh Philippe, Mitchell Starc, Mitchell Swepson, Ashton Turner, Andrew Tye, Matthew Wade (c), Adam Zampa. Travelling reserve: Tanveer Sangha.

Bangladesh squad: Mahmudullah (c), Soumya Sarkar, Naim Sheikh, Shakib Al Hasan, Nurul Hasan Sohan, Afif Hossain, Shamim Hossain, Shaif Uddin, Taskin Ahmed, Shoriful Islam, Nasum Ahmed, Shak Mahedi Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman, Mohammad Mithun, Taijul Islam, Musaddek Hossain Saikat, Rubel Hossain

(all matches at the Sher-e-Bangla National Stadium, Dhaka)

First T20: Bangladesh won by 23 runs

Second T20: Bangladesh won by five wickets

Third T20: Bangladesh won by 10 runs

Fourth T20: Australia won by three wickets

Fifth T20: Bangladesh won by 60 runs