Colombo, February 13 Australian batsman Matt Renshaw refused to blame the slow R Premadasa Stadium pitch for their 23-run defeat to Zimbabwe in the T20 World Cup, saying visiting teams from the subcontinent never complain about pace and bounce when they tour Australia.
Renshaw's 44-ball-65 went in vain as Australia were all out for 146, struggling to generate pace against the Zimbabwe attack.
"I think that's just the nature of cricket. You get a team from the subcontinent 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 cricket is nowadays. You have to be able to adapt to different surfaces."
Renshaw doesn't believe that adjusting to slower surfaces after playing on hard and bouncy Australian tracks during the Big Bash League posed problems.
"Yes, the wickets in Australia during the Big Bash are quite true – they offer a lot of bounce. When you go to India, and if in the other side of the tournament, there are different wickets, there are probably higher scores and shorter boundaries.
"The boundaries here (Premadasa) are quite large, so it's just cricket. But yes, it's probably just about trying to adapt to the conditions as best we can, so that when we get to these conditions, we know what the game plan is, and we know how we are best suited." Renshaw said.
He further praised the Zimbabwean bowlers for sticking to their game plan and making the 170-run target even more challenging.
"Yeah, probably makes it quite tough to chase 170 out there. They bowled really well at the start, took some early wickets, and it felt like every time we built some momentum with the partnership with Maxi (Glenn Maxwell), it was obviously important, but we couldn't get enough momentum to chase it down, and there were just too many wickets to fall."
An experienced player like Marcus Stoinis was forced to come in at No. 7 due to a finger injury sustained during fielding, but Renshaw said this shouldn't be a reason for defeat, admitting that as a team, they weren't good enough on the day.
"Probably Marcus Stoinis was going to bat higher, he got hit on the finger, we don't know how bad it is, but I'm sure the medical staff will treat that. But yeah, that was the problem today. But yeah, we just weren't good enough today."
"They played really well, they batted really well, and got 170 on the board, and 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.