North Sound [Antigua], June 12 (ANI): Star speedster Josh Hazlewood confessed that it would be in Australia’s “best interest” to try to manipulate any margin of triumph over Scotland in order to exclude the defending champions and bitter rivals England from the T20 World Cup 2024.
Australia qualified for the Super 8s of the ongoing T20 World Cup 2024 after beating Namibia by 9 wickets.
The 2021 champions have secured their place in the second round of the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, producing a scary display against Namibia at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua. The Aussies produced a ruthless performance in all departments, chasing down the Namibians’ total of 72 inside six overs.
While the exact sums will not be known until England plays Oman and Namibia – a loss to either will end their tournament – there is a good chance that a scenario emerges in which Australia wins their final group match by a narrow margin, ensuring Scotland advances at England’s expense.
“In this tournament, you potentially come up against England at some stage again and…they’re probably one of the top few teams on their day and we’ve had some real struggles against them in T20 cricket, so if we can get them out of the tournament that’s in our best interest as well as probably everyone else,” Hazlewood said as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
“It’ll be interesting to see. We’ve never really been in this position before as a team, I don’t think, so whether we have discussions or not, we’ll just try and play it again the way we did tonight. That’ll be up to people, not me,” he added.
Such a situation would bring back memories of Australia’s attempt to game the system against the West Indies in the 1999 ODI World Cup by batting slowly in order to collect additional points for the Super Sixes.
“Whether you get close and you just knock it around and drag it out. There’s a few options there but…to take confidence from winning and winning well, I think that’s almost more important than potentially trying to knock someone else out. They’ve still got a lot to do on their behalf as well, so I think it’ll become clearer the closer we get to that sort of stuff,” Hazlewood said of how it could play out.
With run rates not carrying over to the Super Eights in this event, Australia’s hopes would not suffer if they let up on the gas. On that point, Hazlewood admitted that he felt it strange that no benefits were derived from the group stage appearances.
“It’s a little bit strange that it doesn’t go through the tournament. This is probably the first T20 World Cup I’ve played that’s set up this way, or first World Cup in general that’s set up this way, so it’s a little bit different. I think the work that you do in the round games and if you go through undefeated and have a good net run-rate, doesn’t really account for much once you’re in the Super Eights. So, yeah, it’s a strange one but that’s how it is,” the speedster said.
Australia will play their final group stage match against Scotland, who have won two matches out of three while one was abandoned due to rain – notably, it was the game against Engalnd, at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium on Sunday. (ANI)
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