Josh Hazlewood, the Australia fast bowler said, “It is in our best interest” if their long-time rivals and the current champions, England, were to be eliminate early from the T20 World Cup. However, he did not rule out manipulating the tournament’s format in order to achieve this result.
Australia has already sailed through to the ‘Super 8s’ round after winning all three games played in Group B. On the other hand, England have only managed a point out of their two games and they must win their remaining games if they have any hope of advancing alongside Australia.
Scotland are currently second with five points and are likely to take up that other slot for ‘Super 8s’. The two teams will meet on Sunday at St Lucia where both Australia and Scotland have better net run-rates than England.
Hazlewood told reporters after Tuesday’s nine-wicket thrashing of Namibia: “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.”
“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. It’ll be interesting to see. We’ve never really been in this position before as a team.”
The paceman insists it is imperative that Australia finish off against Scotland with an unblemished record. However, there might be temptation for them to help Scotland maintain a better run rate over England.
“You can just knock it around close without.” He said among others.
England suffered a 36-run defeat at the hands of Australia during a match played yesterday at Trent Bridge. Barbados was also the venue used by Aussies when they defeated Oman in another contest by 39 runs prior to pummeling Oman.
Regrettably however for fans who had turned up for it, inclement weather forced the cancellation of England’s match against Scotland which was also supposed to be played in Bridgetown.
Since then, Scotland went on to register a couple of resounding victories by thrashing both Namibia and Oman.
“We take confidence from winning and winning well, I think that’s almost more important than potentially trying to knock someone else out,” said Hazlewood.
“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.”
After this game with Oman on Thursday, England will meet Namibia in Antigua later on Saturday while Australia and Scotland are due to play each other at St Lucia on Sunday after the end of England’s group stage fixtures.
