BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — Mitch Marsh's Australia squad has had a chaotic buildup to the Twenty20 World Cup, he'll fully agree.
Josh Hazlewood was ruled out Friday because of a long-term hamstring injury, meaning Australia will go into a World Cup tournament for the first time since 2011 without any of its three frontline pace bowlers.
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Fans cheer during the second T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Australia's Ben Dwarshuis, right, celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of Pakistan's Salman Ali Agha during the third T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Australia's Matt Renshaw is bowled out by Pakistan's Shaheen Shah Afridi during the third T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Australia's Cameron Green bats during the second T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Pakistan's Abrar Ahmed, center, celebrates with teammate after the dismissal of Australia's Mitchell Marsh, right, during the second T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Pat Cummins was ruled out because of injury and Mitchell Starc has retired from T20s.
Adding to the lack of experience, top-order batter and former skipper Steve Smith wasn’t selected.
Then there's the on-field dramas: A 3-0 series loss for an understrength lineup in Pakistan, including Australia's worst-ever loss in the T20 format.
For Marsh, though, that's already in the past.
“Look, Pakistan was Pakistan,” the big allrounder said at the tournament’s captains call this week in Colombo. “We had a few guys missing and we come here with a long lead-in and a good training session yesterday.
“We'll be very well prepared for our first game.”
It's a good thing that's not until Wednesday.
The Australians usually enter the global International Cricket Council tournaments among the favorites for the title. They've dominated the World Cup in the one-day format, have reached two of the three World Test Championship finals and won the T20 world title in 2021.
Until the trip to Pakistan, Australia had won 17 of 21 T20s.
But things are different this time, with injuries and a very slow changing of the guard.
The tournament being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka starts Saturday with Pakistan against Netherlands. Australia doesn't open until Feb. 11 against Ireland in Colombo, the first of four Group B games in 10 days that also includes showdowns with Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and Oman.
The Australian batters struggled against spin on slow, turning pitches in Pakistan and the conditions are similar in Sri Lanka.
After the quick tour to Pakistan, Marsh said the home team had “outplayed us throughout the whole series.”
“We will take learnings from that,” he said. “We will certainly address this series and look forward to the World Cup.”
Helping matters for the Australians will be the return of allrounder Glenn Maxwell, big-hitting batter Tim David and economical fast bowler Nathan Ellis to the squad after arriving in Colombo.
Maxwell has long been one of the greatest T20 players in the world, capable of producing match-winning innings, engineering crucial wickets with his off-spin and turning momentum with his exceptional fielding.
His form is crucial to Australia's success, along with the ability of Marsh and Travis Head to get the innings away to fast starts. Head has proven himself as a match-winner in the test and ODI formats and should excel on the biggest stage in T20, where his ability against spin and his array of scoring options suit the tempo of the game. He hasn't posted a half-century in his last 11 T20 international innings, but he could be primed for the world tournament.
In the understrength bowling department, Ellis, who is returning from a hamstring injury, and veteran spinner Adam Zampa hold the keys.
Zampa has taken 139 wickets in 111 T20 internationals at an economy rate of 7.37 and a strike rate of 17, and was among the stars of the 2021 title-winning squad.
Hazlewood was initially going to have a delayed start to the tournament and remained in Sydney to continue his recovery, with Sean Abbott sent to Sri Lanka as a traveling reserve for cover.
"We were hopeful Josh would be back to match fitness by the Super Eights stage but the latest indications (are) he is still some time away,” Australia selector Tony Dodemaide said Friday. “Trying to accelerate his program will carry too much of a risk.
“We will not be naming a replacement player immediately. We feel we are well covered for the initial games so will make any later decisions based on priority need at the time.”
AP cricket: https://apnews.com/hub/cricket
Fans cheer during the second T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Australia's Ben Dwarshuis, right, celebrates with teammates after the dismissal of Pakistan's Salman Ali Agha during the third T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Australia's Matt Renshaw is bowled out by Pakistan's Shaheen Shah Afridi during the third T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Australia's Cameron Green bats during the second T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
Pakistan's Abrar Ahmed, center, celebrates with teammate after the dismissal of Australia's Mitchell Marsh, right, during the second T20 cricket match between Pakistan and Australia, in Lahore, Pakistan, Saturday, Jan. 31, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)
MUSCAT, Oman (AP) — Iran and the United States stood poised Friday to hold negotiations in Oman at least over Tehran's nuclear program after a chaotic week that initially saw plans for regional countries to take part in talks in Turkey.
The two countries have returned to Oman, a sultanate on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, months after rounds of meetings turned to ash following Israel's launch of a 12-day war against Iran back in June. The U.S. bombed Iranian nuclear sites during that war, likely destroying many of the centrifuges that spun uranium to near weapons-grade purity. Israel's attacks decimated Iran's air defenses and targeted its ballistic missile arsenal as well.
U.S. officials like Secretary of State Marco Rubio believe Iran's theocracy is now at its weakest point since its 1979 Islamic Revolution after nationwide protests last month represented the greatest challenge to 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's rule. Khamenei's forces responded with a bloody crackdown that killed thousands and reportedly saw tens of thousands arrested — and spurred new military threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to target the country.
With the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and other warships in the region along with more fighter jets, the U.S. now likely has the military firepower to launch an attack if it wanted. But whether attacks could be enough to force Iran to change its ways — or potentially topple its government — remains far from a sure thing.
Meanwhile, Gulf Arab nations fear an attack could spark a regional war dragging them in as well. That threat is real — already, U.S. forces shot down an Iranian drone near the Lincoln and Iran attempted to stop a U.S.-flagged ship in the Strait of Hormuz.
“President Trump seeks to corner Iran into reaching a negotiated solution, strong-arming its leaders into making concessions on the nuclear deal,” said Alissa Pavia, a fellow at the Atlantic Council. “The Iranians, on the other hand, are weakened after years of proxy warfare, economic crisis, and internal unrest. Trump is aware of this vulnerability and is hoping to use it to extract concessions and make inroads toward a renewed nuclear agreement.”
The scope, nature and participants in the talks remain unclear, just hours before they were due to begin in Muscat, the Omani capital nestled in the Hajar Mountains. Officials at Oman's borders on Thursday showed particular concern over anyone carrying cameras into the sultanate before the negotiations.
On the Iranian side, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived at night along with multiple Iranian diplomats, the state-run IRNA news agency reported.
Flight-tracking data showed the plane that carried him to Muscat initially started its journey from Tabas, Iran, the site of the disastrous Operation Eagle Claw in 1980, when a U.S. Special Forces mission attempted to rescue hostages held after the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran. A sandstorm in Tabas aborted the mission and eight service members died when a helicopter crashed into a C-120 refueling aircraft there. Iran's theocracy long has portrayed the mission as God defeating the Americans.
Araghchi wrote on X that “Iran enters diplomacy with open eyes and a steady memory of the past year.”
“Commitments need to be honored,” he wrote. “Equal standing, mutual respect and mutual interest are not rhetoric — they are a must and the pillars of a durable agreement.”
Ahead of the meeting, a top adviser to Khamenei appeared to offer the theocracy's support to the 63-year-old career diplomat.
Araghchi “is a skilled, strategic and trustworthy negotiator at the highest levels of decision-making and military intelligence,” Ali Shamkhani wrote on X. “Soldiers of the nation in the armed forces & generals of diplomacy, acting under the order of the Leader, will safeguard the nation’s interests.”
On the U.S. side, it appeared that talks would be led by U.S. Mideast special envoy Steve Witkoff, a 68-year-old billionaire New York real estate mogul and longtime friend to Trump. Traveling with Witkoff on his Mideast trip so far is Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law who in recent weeks has shared proposals for the Gaza Strip and took part in trilateral talks with Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi earlier on the trip.
The two men had traveled from Abu Dhabi to Qatar on Thursday night for meetings with officials there, the Qatari-funded satellite news network Al Jazeera reported. Qatar, which shares an offshore natural gas field in the Persian Gulf with Iran, also hosts a major U.S. military installation that Iran attacked back in the June war.
It remains unclear just what terms Iran will be willing to negotiate at the talks. Tehran has maintained that these talks only will be on its nuclear program. However, Al Jazeera reported that diplomats from Egypt, Turkey and Qatar offered Iran a proposal in which Tehran would halt enrichment for three years, send its highly enriched uranium out of the country and pledge “not initiate the use of ballistic missiles.”
Russia had signaled it would take the uranium, but Shamkhani in an interview earlier this week had said ending the program or shipping out the uranium were nonstarters for the country. Meanwhile, the talks would not include any pledge by Iran over its self-described “Axis of Resistance,” a network of militias in the region allied to Tehran as a deterrent to both Israel and the U.S. However, Israeli attacks on the militias during its war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip decimated the network.
Rubio, America's top diplomat, said talks needed to include all those issues.
“I think in order for talks to actually lead to something meaningful, they will have to include certain things, and that includes the range of their ballistic missiles,” Rubio told journalists Wednesday. “That includes their sponsorship of terrorist organizations across the region. That includes the nuclear program, and that includes the treatment of their own people.”
The Associated Press receives support for nuclear security coverage from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and Outrider Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - White House Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff speaks at an event in the Oval Office of the White House, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert,File)
FILE - In this photo released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, left, is welcomed by an unidentified Omani official, center, upon his arrival at Muscat, Oman, for negotiations with U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff, as Iranian Ambassador to Oman Mousa Farhang walks at right, May 11, 2025. (Iranian Foreign Ministry via AP, File)
People attend a state-organised rally in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, celebrating the birthday of Imam Mahdi, or "Hidden Imam," a 9th-century saint whom Shiite Muslims believe will return at the end of time as a universal reformer to end tyranny and promote justice. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
People attend a state-organised rally in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, Feb. 4, 2026, celebrating the birthday of Imam Mahdi, or "Hidden Imam," a 9th-century saint whom Shiite Muslims believe will return at the end of time as a universal reformer to end tyranny and promote justice. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
FILE - This combo shows Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, left, pictured in Tehran, Iran, on Feb. 25, 2025 and Steve Witkoff, right, White House special envoy, pictured in Washington, on March 19, 2025. (AP Photos Stringer, Mark Schiefelbein)
