The T20 World Cup has a final group stage match for Australia against Scotland at the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium on Saturday. Australian all-rounder Pat Cummins has refuted claims that his team would consider manipulating their final group match against Scotland to eliminate England from the T20 World Cup.
Before making any statement about it, speculation was high when Australian fast bowler Josh Hazlewood made some comments suggesting that the team might attempt to restrict Scotland’s run rate on a lighter note. This strategy, if implemented, could have potentially crushed down England despite its recent rise in form.
England began the super 2 stage poorly only to end up with an improved net run rate by defeating Oman convincingly as they needed to finish strong to stand a chance of qualifying in Group A with a win over Namibia.
Hazlewood’s comments indicated that things could be different therefore Tim Paine’ plea for Australians to ‘manipulate’ results by knocking out England may not work as he had hoped and raised questions regarding whether such practice is ethical and is used in shaping tournaments.
In light of this controversy, Cummins said that Hazlewood had been jokingly quoted out of contest. “I was speaking to Joshy who had a bit of joke around it the other day so I think got taken a little bit out of context,” Cummins said according to Reuters.
“We will have a game against Scotland there who have had a great tournament so far; it won’t be easy,” said Cummins who added that they were focused on ensuring victory over Scotland rather than displaying their net run rate as much as one of the anomalies associated with this system.
