Australia's Travis Head said they will use their 2023 ODI World Cup success as a "blueprint" for the current T20 World Cup after they were defeated by Zimbabwe.

Head was bowled out for just 17 in Australia's chase as the 2021 champions lost by 23 runs in Colombo after choosing to bowl first.

After also beating them in the inaugural T20 World Cup back in 2007, Zimbabwe have now defeated Australia in both of their meetings in the competition.

Australia's squad has been hit with injuries as Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and captain Mitchell Marsh are among those currently sidelined.

They were in a similar situation during the 2023 ODI World Cup, where injuries and early defeats in the campaign did not stop them from lifting the trophy in India.

Head, who is the stand-in captain in Marsh's absence, has called on his team-mates to use that experience as a guide for their current struggles.

"We thought it's a good wicket. A bit tacky at the start and we thought it would be even through the two innings," said Head after the match.

"Even though we only took two wickets, I thought they were a bit under par. But we lost early wickets and came under pressure. They played well.

"I still felt like we'd have taken the score and were happy to chase that. The feedback throughout was that it was a good wicket.

"We put ourselves under pressure by losing wickets. We found a partnership in the middle but we left ourselves with too many.

"We've been there before. I said at the toss, we saw it in 2023 with a few defeats and injuries. We have a few guys here who were there in India in 2023 and we'll look to navigate this situation and use that blueprint."

Zimbabwe are still undefeated against Australia in #T20WorldCup games, after producing a stunner at R. Premadasa Stadium  pic.twitter.com/Fx7rZEhy6v

— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) February 13, 2026

Blessing Muzarabani was the star performer for Zimbabwe, taking career-best figures of 4-17 in the victory.

He also became the third Zimbabwe player to reach 100 T20I wickets, after Sikandar Raza and Richard Ngavara.

When asked if this was his best-ever spell, he replied: "Yeah. I think I was bowling to some of the best players in the world so I am really happy it came off really nice.

"The good thing is, I saw the boundary was in my favour and I just had to use that. And the wicket was also a bit slow.

"Really good to beat Australia, but also [will be] nice to qualify, so looking forward to the next game now."