I had to sit in a changing room on my own - Wade

Two weeks ago when I was thinking about the Men's T20 World Cup, I certainly did not think it would be anything like this.

Last week my positive Covid test meant that, while more than 60,000 people were expected to come to the Melbourne Cricket Ground for our game against England, I had to sit in a changing room on my own.

I was allowed to talk to team-mate Adam Zampa - he had tested positive earlier in the week - but otherwise I had to keep my distance from the rest of the squad.

I could hear them from my changing room - one of the physio rooms that they emptied all of their kit out of - but I was not allowed to mix with the others.

The game was washed out so it did not matter, but I was always going to play, as long as I felt at least 50-50.

I had a mild headache and felt lethargic for a few days, but otherwise I was OK.

The virus spreading among the squad was clearly something we had to be careful of, but thankfully we are now in a place as a country and a competition where the rules said I was able to play.

We took the risk when Josh Inglis got injured not to call up another back-up wicketkeeper, so if I did not play the only other option was one of the part-time keepers, like Davey Warner or Glenn Maxwell, taking the gloves.

Like any part-time keeper, those two like to think they could do the job, but once reality kicks in and you have to dive down the leg side or take one from Mitchell Starc at 90mph it's a whole different thing.

Six days earlier we were well beaten by New Zealand, but the thing about our team is we have been in situations like that before.

We lost to England by eight wickets in last year's World Cup before turning it around to beat New Zealand in the final. We have not panicked and know we can do it again.

We responded well against Sri Lanka, when Marcus Stoinis powered us to victory.

I am not sure I have seen him as pumped up as he was that night and I haven't seen him in as good form either.

He tries to say he does not spend that much time in the gym, but I'm not sure I believe him. Stoiny is hitting it so big at the moment.

For me personally the tournament still had time for another twist on Monday when our captain Aaron Finch had to go off with a hamstring injury, leaving me to be skipper on the field.

I have been lucky to captain Australia before, mostly recently in our Twenty20 series in Bangladesh last year, but it did not really sink in that I had done so in a World Cup until I got back to the hotel.

Luckily, as one of the leadership group, I have been going to all of the team meetings in recent weeks, so was across all of the bowling plans and tactics.

It made it quite a smooth transition.

Also, with our team, we have lots of players in the group who could fill the role.

When we first went out and were not sure if Finchy was going to be able to field I said would be asking for help from all of those players.

Last night it was Glenn Maxwell, David Warner and Steve Smith, who was on the field as a substitute and is great to bounce ideas off.

Davey [Warner] was standing next to the bowlers at mid-off and as a keeper one of the hardest parts of being a captain is being able to get down and communicate with your bowlers, so I wanted someone to help me do that.

We all want Finchy to pull up well from his hamstring issue but if not, and the management thought I would be the right man to do it for the rest of the tournament, I would be honoured.

In the end, we probably missed an opportunity against Ireland, after having them 25-5 and only winning by 42 runs.

We probably could have scored more than our 179-5 as well.

We have spoken about net run-rate within the team over the past few days because we know our group could come down to that for a place in the semi-finals.

That said, we may have discussed it but we are trying to not get too far ahead of ourselves and first get into a position in a match where we can push on and really go for it.

If you think about net run-rate too soon you can come unstuck.

Most important was the win. Now it's down to the last two games and a battle for those knockout places.

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Matthew Wade was speaking to BBC Sport's Matthew Henry

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