Australia have warned they are ready to doom England to another humiliating World Cup exit — by fiddling their final group match against Scotland.
The reigning 50-over and Test world champions booked their own place in the Super Eight of the T20 equivalent overnight with a hurried victory against Namibia — and could well have command of England’s fate by their final group match against Scotland, with bowler Josh Hazlewood admitting it would be in their “best interests” to send Jos Buttler’s side packing.
England are currently stranded in fourth place in Group B on just one point, having seen their opening game against Scotland washed out, before being outclassed by Australia on Saturday.
To have any chance of qualifying, they need heavy wins over Oman and Namibia in their final two group matches as they look to match Scotland’s points tally and overhaul their healthy net run-rate advantage.
Eliminating England is in our best interests, and probably everyone else’s
However, Scotland and Australia meet in Group B’s final match and will by then know exactly what is required to ensure England crash out, with Hazlewood suggesting that the Aussies will consider manipulating the result should the opportunity arise.
“In this tournament, you potentially come up against England at some stage again, and they’re one of the top few teams on their day,” Hazlewood said.
“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 interests, as well as probably everyone else’s.
“It’ll be interesting to see. We’ve never really been in this position before as a team I don’t think. Whether we have discussions or not, or we just try and play again the way we played tonight, that’ll be up to people, not me.”
Even assuming that England go on to win against Oman tomorrow and Namibia on Saturday, an upset Scotland win — or a washout — in their game against Australia on Sunday morning would end any hope of Buttler’s men advancing. However, a narrow defeat could also be enough for the Scots to hold onto second place.
Australia, meanwhile, who beat Namibia by nine wickets with 14.4 overs to spare overnight, have no incentive to rush to another quick victory, with net run-rate wiped heading into the Super Eight.
“Not too sure, really. Whether you get close and just knock it around and drag it out,” Hazlewood said, when asked how Australia might confect such a result. “There’s a few options there.
“England still have a lot to do on their behalf as well, so it’ll become clearer the closer we get to that sort of stuff.”
Unlike in football’s World Cup, the final set of group matches do not take place at the same time, in part because of the odd number of teams in each mini-league and also in a bid to maximise television exposure across various time zones around the world.
An early exit for England, following on from last year’s dismal 50-over World Cup defence in India, may well spell the end of Buttler’s captaincy and Matthew Mott’s stint as head coach.
