David Hussey has his chance to shine tonight as Australia bid to rescue their World Twenty20 campaign.

David Hussey has his chance to shine tonight as Australia bid to rescue their World Twenty20 campaign.

Unless Australia can beat Sri Lanka in their last Group C fixture at Trent Bridge - a match which follows Ireland's opener against Bangladesh at the same venue - they will be eliminated only four days into the tournament.

For middle-order batsman Hussey, the stakes are even higher at a ground where he has played for Nottinghamshire for two seasons - because he has not been chosen in Australia's squad to face England in the Ashes from the start of next month.

He acknowledges therefore that it would hit him especially hard if Australia's challenge ended at the first hurdle.

Huge tournament

"This is massive and is my chance to do well on the international stage - I hope as a stepping stone to play in the (50-over) one-dayers," he said.

"My ultimate goal is to play Test cricket, because that is what international cricket is all about."

It would be an obvious embarrassment for Australia to go out so early in a competition which began with the departure of mercurial all-rounder Andrew Symonds for disciplinary reasons.

"This is a huge tournament and one trophy that we haven't attained yet," Hussey added.

"So we we can win well and go from strength to strength throughout the tournament."

He reported too that Australia are simply not equating the outcome of the Twenty20 to the Ashes series which will follow.

Distraction

"I'm not in the Ashes squad, so it doesn't concern me," he explained.

"But as a team, we haven't really spoken about the Ashes. We're fully focused on this competition."

Asked whether the Ashes could be a distraction for any of Ricky Ponting's squad, Hussey's dismissal of the notion was unequivocal.

"That's massively nonsense," he claimed.

"I know all the boys are fully focused on winning this competition. It's a huge bit of silverware for Australia."

Shine

Hussey has no doubt Australia will be doubly determined to prove themselves after the seven-wicket defeat against West Indies at The Oval on Saturday, which put them in their current predicament.

"We are a very tight-knit group and once Australians have their backs to the wall we do generally come out on top," he reasoned.

Symonds' absence, meanwhile, gives Hussey a higher-profile role.

"It's a great opportunity for me to shine," he recognised.

"I have played a lot of Twenty20 cricket - and with Andrew not being there, I guess it gives other people opportunities to play in the middle order."

By the time Hussey gets his chance, Ireland will already have a much better idea how long they will last in the tournament.

They need to beat Bangladesh to have realistic pretensions to progressing from a group containing champions India - and they will doubtless be looking to Niall O'Brien as one of their best hopes against a team they easily beat at the 2007 World Cup.

"I've probably got the most experience of any of the lads in the team," the Northamptonshire wicketkeeper-batsman observed.

"I'll have to draw on all that over the last three or four years in England at Twenty20 level."

Whatever the outcome, O'Brien insists he will be living in the present and looking to the future - rather than harking back to the Caribbean campaign of two years ago.

"A lot of people go back to 2007," he noted.

"But for me, that has gone. It's two years down the line now, and I'm a better player than I was then.

"I'm looking forward to impressing on the world stage again."