It's a knockout tournament for us now: Lanning

Australia captain Meg Lanning insists there's no panic within her side despite having to come to grips with their T20 World Cup campaign becoming almost a knockout scenario.

Friday night's loss to India means Australia will likely have to win their remaining three group games to reach the semi-finals.

While theoretically the hosts could at this stage drop one more match and still qualify for the finals, the strong likelihood is that they will need victories over Sri Lanka and Bangladesh to set up a potentially do-or-die match with world No.3 New Zealand in their final Group A match.

The pressure is well and truly on the defending champions to produce the goods on home soil, but Lanning says there's no panic.

"Definitely not," Lanning said. "It's not ideal, we would have loved to have won last night. But it's a long way to go in this tournament.

"I've never gone through a World Cup and not lost a group stage game. We've got that one out of the way early.

"It's a knockout tournament (now) – we probably started that a little bit earlier than we would have liked.

"But there's pressure on at World Cups all the time.

"We're looking no further ahead than Sri Lanka – they're a good side and they've performed well over the last little bit.

"So we'll hopefully get out tournament up and running when we come up against them."

Australia's meeting with Sri Lanka is on Monday at Perth's WACA Ground, where Lanning said both her batting and bowling groups would relish some extra pace and bounce in the wicket.

The Sri Lankans suffered a seven-wicket defeat to New Zealand at the same venue on Saturday, though Lanning said the Australians will be cautious of the threat offered by outstanding batter and captain Chamari Athapaththu, who scored two centuries against Australia (one in each format) when her team toured this country last September and October.

"We know them pretty well – we played a series against them late last year, and we saw them beat England the other day in the practice game," the skipper said.

"We're very wary of them, we know that they're a threat – Athapaththu especially with the bat, she's played well against us in the past.

"We'll be ready and planned, and hopefully we can execute Monday."

One major positive to take out of the loss to India was the form of opener Alyssa Healy, who scored 51 off 35 balls in Australia's total of 115.

Healy had scored just 24 runs from her previous six innings.

"We were always very confident she was going to come back, you guys (the media) maybe not so much," Lanning said.

"It was nice to see her do well. We knew the way she plays it would eventually click for her."

Lanning said her team were flat after the loss to India, but had since picked themselves up.

"Cricket is such an up and down game, there's highs and lows all the time," she said.

"So you get used to it as a cricketer."

2020 ICC Women's T20 World Cup

Australia squad: Meg Lanning (c), Rachael Haynes (vc), Erin Burns, Nicola Carey, Ashleigh Gardner, Alyssa Healy (wk), Jess Jonassen, Delissa Kimmince, Sophie Molineux, Beth Mooney, Ellyse Perry, Megan Schutt, Molly Strano, Annabel Sutherland, Georgia Wareham

February 21:India won by 17 runs

February 24: Australia v Sri Lanka, WACA Ground

February 27: Australia v Bangladesh, Manuka Oval 

March 2: Australia v New Zealand, Junction Oval

March 5: Semi-final 1 & Semi-final 2, SCG

March 8: Final, MCG

For a full list of all World Cup fixtures, click HERE

* All matches will be broadcast on Fox Cricket and Kayo, while Australia’s matches will also be broadcast on the Nine Network