Pat Cummins has urged his Australian side to get “fired up” as they look to put England out of their Cricket World Cup misery.
Despite losing five of their first six group matches, England are still not mathematically out of the competition but will have their exit confirmed should Australia triumph in Ahmedabad.
Australia themselves began the tournament with back-to-back defeats to South Africa and India but have since won four on the bounce to charge into semi-final contention and now have the added incentive of knocking out their old rivals as they seek to make it five in a row.
“We're quite a chilled, calm group, so sometimes when we get a little bit more fired up, I actually don't think it's too bad a thing,” Cummins said at a press conference this morning.
"I mean it's an old rivalry so yeah, you're not going to lie, if they beat us I know it's probably just that little bit sweeter than beating other teams. And the same for us, with their history and how well they've done in white-ball cricket. It would be a great win.”
Australia will be without star all-rounders Glenn Maxwell and Mitchell Marsh for the contest, with Marcus Stoinis and Cameron Green expected to come into the side.
Maxwell scored the World Cup’s fastest ever century earlier in the tournament, from just 41 balls, but was concussed when falling off a golf cart earlier this week, while Marsh has flown home for personal reasons.
Both players are expected to return to action in the latter stages but Cummins joined growing calls for World Cup squads to be expanded beyond their current 15-man limit, with New Zealand having been even more severely restricted by injuries. Team are allowed to call up injury reserves, but such changes cannot be reversed, meaning any player replaced is ruled out for the entire tournament.
“It's a two-month tournament,” Cummins said. “You wouldn't want to be in a position where a team like New Zealand have had some injuries and luckily, they've been able to hold someone like Kane [Williamson] in the squad but if suddenly you had to rule him out. I think that wouldn't be good for cricket or a World Cup.
“It's not like you can poach players from other countries, so I always kind of think as many players as you need, you should be able to pick from.”
