In time, Josh Hazlewood’s eyebrow-raising comments on Wednesday could prove the first good thing that has happened to England at this T20 World Cup.
In admitting publicly that Australia might contrive to extract some English humiliation from their meeting with Scotland on Sunday, the fast bowler probably did a fair bit to ensure that they won’t.
Cricket’s integrity warriors, a surprising number of whom seemed to be English, were quickly out in force, scrambling for the relevant page in the rule book that says any attempt to deliberately slow a chase — “knock it around and drag it out”, as Hazlewood put it — for the purposes of net run-rate manipulation could lead to a two-game ban for captain Mitchell Marsh.
The match referee for that final Group B match, Jeff Crowe, will go in with both eyes open and the Aussies, with the business end of the tournament to come, will want to avoid the rap.
Matthew Mott, England’s head coach for now at least, was relaxed about his countryman’s remarks, having previously worked with him at New South Wales.
“I think I know Josh pretty well and I know his integrity. He’s got a very good sense of humour,” Mott said. “I am hoping it was very much tongue in cheek.
“I actually don’t think it is ever going to play out. Having grown up in Australia, and the will to win every game, I am sure they will come to the fore. I am very much hoping it was an off-hand remark by a really good bloke who is having fun.”
The trouble, of course, is that this England white-ball team have proven perfectly capable of humiliating themselves in recent months, and have two more chances to do just that before Scotland and Australia might even be tempted by the lure of a dark room and a dodgy deal.
Indeed, with Hazlewood having sparked so much English fretting, having reignited last summer’s ‘Rattled Ashes’, nothing would delight the Aussies more than watching England stuff it up of their own accord.
The first such opening comes on Thursday night against Oman in Antigua, where defeat would be perhaps the greatest World Cup shock of all, but even anything other than a resounding victory another step towards the plane home.
In fourth, with only one point on the board and just Thursday’s winless opposition below them, to reach the Super Eight, England must win their two remaining matches, hope Scotland lose to Australia and witness a run-rate swing across those three matches that is significant enough to bridge what, at the moment, is a hefty gap to the Scots.
“Regardless of any outside noise, qualification, run-rates, we’ve got to win this game,” said Mott, as England look to at least kick the can down the road towards their final group match against Namibia on Saturday afternoon.
I am hoping it was very much tongue in cheek
Viewed as a tournament in isolation, the existential doom encircling this England set-up feels a little premature: they have effectively had one bad day against the best all-format team in the world, been unlucky with a washout and could yet fly home on the back of successive hammerings of minnows wondering how it all went wrong.
But the backdrop is the dismal 50-over World Cup defence in India last year and the sense that failure in the Caribbean, by whatever means, would confirm the end of a champion era.
It is evidence of England’s evaporating white-ball aura that all-rounder Ayaan Khan saw no demons in the task facing his Oman team.
“We are not thinking that we are standing in front of the mighty England,” he said. “We are just here to play.”
