Kolkata, Feb. 18 -- Rain in Pallekele knocked Australia out of the World Cup and sent Zimbabwe into the Super Eights of the T20 World Cup on Tuesday. The match between Ireland and Zimbabwe was abandoned without a ball being bowled, meaning Zimbabwe-with five points-made it to the second round of a World Cup for the first time since 2003. So little has gone right for Australia that it wasn't surprising that a rained out match finally put an end to their misery. The last league match against Oman now of academic interest. Australia were shocked by Zimbabwe before Sri Lanka thrashed them by eight wickets on Monday to leave their fate hanging on other matches and permutations and combinations. For the third consecutive T20 World Cup Australia haven't made the semi-finals, 2021 being the last time they featured in the last four, going on to win the tournament. It's a turn of fortune they couldn't have envisaged going into this event. Worse still, the elimination came a day after Steve Smith was finally announced as a replacement in the team for the injured Josh Hazlewood, a last ditch corrective measure aimed at bolstering their batting. By the way, Smith was in Sri Lanka all this while. That the selectors chose to wait till before Monday's game against Sri Lanka to officially induct him in the squad when they were down to 13 fit players after Mitchell Marsh was injured speaks volumes about the indecision in their ranks. More puzzling was the decision to drop Matt Renshaw, who had top-scored with 65 against Zimbabwe, to accommodate Marsh, but retain Cameron Green who now has scores of 21, 0 and 3. Green at No.3 reaffirms Australia's idea of presenting themselves as a side packed with allrounders with power-hitting ability but the scores suggest he is no Marcus Stoinis. The problems actually start from the top. Travis Head has scored a fifty against Sri Lanka but his average in 12 innings previous to that was 12.83 at a strike rate of 125. Between Josh Inglis, Glenn Maxwell and Green, the highest score in three matches of this World Cup is 37. Tim David-he missed the Ireland game due to a hamstring issue-was supposed to be the middle-overs enforcer but 0 against Zimbabwe and 6 against Sri Lanka scuppered those plans for Australia. Not often has Australia's preparation looked this rudderless. To persist with Green, who hasn't managed a half-century in any format since November, bordered on suicidal. Equally perplexing was the decision to rest Maxwell for the warm-up series against Pakistan that Australia lost 0-3, where no one scored more than 36. That they failed was on expected lines. Surprising was how the selectors were never spooked by the setbacks. "The whole campaign was doomed from the get-go with selection issues and injuries," former Australia batting great Mark Waugh told SENQ Breakfast. "Preparation hasn't been great. It's all unfolded probably the way I thought it would, even though we're in a pretty weak group. I know you can't please everybody, and sometimes there are tough calls that can go either way, but to me, the non-selection of Steve Smith in the squad originally is the most baffling non-selection I can remember for ages." The bowling was in an equal state of distress with Pat Cummins and Hazlewood ruled out. Hazlewood's absence was particularly telling, directly affecting Australia's Powerplay fortunes as they ended up taking just one wicket in the first six overs against Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka. Nathan Ellis has been reasonably successful but in these two matches he has an economy of 9.42 without a wicket. Neither Xavier Bartlett nor Sean Abbott have been consistent enough to be a Powerplay specialist, yet Australia persevered. Without Mitchell Starc, who had retired from the format, it was only a matter of time the pacers would fall short at the T20 World Cup. That had a cascading effect on leg spinner Adam Zampa, who always found himself under the pump. He started with 4/23 against Ireland but by the Sri Lanka match, Zampa was conceding more than 10 runs per over. That meant Australia could never plug any hole when it mattered the most....