Lorcan Tucker claimed Ireland must remain “competitive and keen” after a 67-run mauling by Australia in Colombo on Wednesday effectively ended their T20 World Cup campaign after just two matches.

Vice-captain Tucker, who stood in for injured skipper Paul Stirling at the post-match presentations, did his best to sound positive following a second defeat, four days after losing to Sri Lanka, as he insisted: “Plenty of things can still happen.”

In reality, there is more chance of Ireland finishing bottom of Group B than in the top two and progressing to the quarter-finals, and they will be playing to avoid that ignominy against Oman on Saturday, and Zimbabwe three days later.

And the Boys in Green may well go into those games without Stirling who damaged his knees while taking a spectacular diving catch at short-extra cover.

If Ireland were going to get near Australia’s 182-6, they needed a significant contribution from their leader but his innings lasted just one ball: a push into the on-side, a hobbled single, and a despondent trudge back to the changing rooms — retired hurt.

“It was brave of Stirlo to go out there and try to bat,” Tucker said.

His replacement Harry Tector was gone too by the end of the second over — uncharacteristically skying to mid-off — and Ross Adair was deceived and bowled by a wicked back-of-the-hand slower ball from Nathan Ellis, after bludgeoning a four and a six.

Curtis Campher scooped his first ball for four but then slapped the next one to mid-wicket and it was left to Tucker and George Dockrell to give the innings some respectability with a sixth-wicket partnership of 46.

Dockrell, who top-scored with 41 in a total of 115-9, is having a renaissance as an all-rounder — after starting his career as a left-arm spinner then focusing on his batting — and he was again the pick of the bowlers taking 1-31 from four overs.

Leg-spinner Gareth Delany helped the 33-year-old put a brake on Australia after the powerplay had leaked 64 runs, and Tector was also give three overs of off spin on a pitch that favoured the slower men.

“We didn’t start as well with the ball as we would have liked but the spinners did well to put us back in the game,” Tucker said.

“We were thinking maybe [restrict them to] 150-160. The way we were set up we could have gone after that.”