Australia vs Oman LIVE: ICC T20 World Cup 2024 – cricket score & commentary

BBC Sport has partnered with data analysts CricViz to pick out a key batter and bowler for each side.

Travis Head has been identified as Australia’s key batter, with Mitchell Starc as their key bowler.

Hot off a match-winning performance in the 50-over World Cup final and a scintillating reintroduction into the Indian Premier League (IPL), including a 39-ball hundred, Head is fast becoming the key man for an Australia side searching for white-ball World Cup supremacy.

Across this World Cup cycle he has scored his runs at a strike-rate of more than of 175.

He demolishes pace bowling in particular, averaging more than 50 at a strike-rate above 190 since the last World Cup.

Record-breaking Starc recently became themost expensive player in the IPL, Kolkata Knight Riders spending about £2.3m to secure his services.

He is a powerplay specialist who will look to blast top-order batters away with fast-swinging deliveries then crush their toes in the death overs with fast yorkers.

Starc is Australia’s leading wicket taker in T20 World Cups, with 27 wickets in 20 matches.

Image source, BBC Sport/Getty Images

For Oman captain Aqib Ilyas is the key batter and Bilal Khan is the key bowler.

Ilyas is Oman’s leading run-scorer in the past 18 months and is the newly appointed captain for the World Cup.

The right-hander has been one of Oman’s most consistent performers with the bat, scoring six half-centuries since the last T20 World Cup.

A consistent and healthy strike-rate of 161 through the middle overs helps consolidate Oman’s innings, allowing powerplay and death-over specialists to bat around him.

Khan is Oman’s left-arm yorker specialist. He has taken 106 wickets for Oman in his T20 career. No other bowler has taken more than 50.

Used at the start and end of the innings, Khan boasts an impressive record in both phases.

In the past 18 months he has taken 10 powerplay wickets at an economy of 4.96, and backed that up with death-over figures of 13 wickets and an economy rate of 8.9.