As unnecessary overthrows go, this was it.

As moments that sum up forgettable World Cup campaigns go, this was certainly it.

It was the first delivery of the 16th over in Oman's innings. The associate team's innings was going nowhere. The match was going nowhere. The night was going nowhere. It was an uninspiring moment from an uninspiring game of T20I cricket.

When Glenn Maxwell picked up a ball that was hit straight back at him by Wasim Ali and flung it towards the wicketkeeper. The throw was off-target and ricocheted harmlessly towards Adam Zampa at short fine-leg. Only for the Australian leg-spinner to let the ball slip through his legs, conceding a rather undeserved single to Wasim.

The reactions from the players involved if anything put the moment into context in terms of lack of consequence more than the actual error on the field.

Zampa looked away. Maxwell looked away. So did every other Australian on the field. It did have little bearing on the contest. It had literally no bearing on Australia's hopes in the World Cup. Those had been extinguished a couple of days before Mitch Marsh's team had the unenviable task of taking the field in Pallekele for the final league encounter of Round 1. And the deadest of rubbers ever in a World Cup.

As it turned out, Maxwell cleaned up Wasim's stumps a couple of deliveries post the collective indiscretion on the field. But there was no celebration. Just like there wasn't for any wicket that fell during the Oman innings. There was also the moment where Cameron Green seemed keener to get back to the top of his mark rather than hang around and find out if his incredibly athletic effort at taking a caught and bowled low to the ground had resulted in a legal catch. It went with the mood of the evening.

Australia were always going to try and get out of this one as quickly as they could. To put an end to their painful stay in Sri Lanka.

It started with Marsh's decision to bowl first upon winning the toss despite the batting friendly surface on offer in Pallekele.

Their 2026 T20 World Cup story had come to an end 15 days earlier than they'd expected it to. They'd been among three Test nations to bow out at the preliminary stage. The other two being Afghanistan, who at least had their moments in the tournament, and Ireland.

There's merit in calling it this an Australian team's worst ever World Cup performance. Especially when you look at the first round group they found themselves in. To not qualify when you're up against Zimbabwe, who didn't even qualify for the last edition, and Sri Lanka, who despite being co-hosts have had one of the more ordinary overall records in the format in recent times. This is nothing to take away from the comprehensive nature in which both of them managed to thrash Australia. But it explains the scale of Australia's debacle.

While most of Australia slept, the former champions' hopes in the tournament went to bed prematurely. And the criticism back home has been fierce ever since. But it's not always been constructive. It's felt less like nuanced post-mortems, and more like people on the side of the road gathering around a car wreck with each piping in with their opinion about whose fault it was.

In a way, it's been a reflection of the largely passing interest that the critical mass of Australian cricket fans have expressed in the T20I team's fortunes over the years. Mostly because it's been played behind a paywall and not on free-to-air television since 2018-19. But also because of how most of Australia's bilaterals away from home have been played at odd hours for their home audiences.

Maybe the rapid frequency of these T20 World Cups might have something to do with it, but it's probably more to do with Australia's overall failure to dominate this particular format in a fashion in which they have the other two. When you consider that since 2012, Australia have only made the semifinal stage of the T20 World Cup once, in 2021 when they went on to win the trophy.

It's highly likely that not many would have been stirred this time around either if Australia were knocked out in the Super 8s stage of the tournament. Just like it was the case back in 2024, a largely forgettable campaign that never quite got going. But one when it ended barely got a mention in the papers here. So it was either going to take Australia winning the title against the odds or an embarrassing exit like the one that's transpired for the tournament to really get some mainstream attention.

So where did it all go wrong for the Australians? To completely undermine their lead up to the World Cup would be unfair. They won 16 out of the 20 games they played before the start of the current summer. They then went down 2-1 to India in a rain-affected series, lost 3-0 in Pakistan with a team missing a big chunk of their core players.