Australia’s Josh Hazlewood suggests strategic victory margins in their final group match to potentially eliminate England from the T20 World Cup 2024. Learn more about the unfolding drama and team strategies.
Josh Hazlewood has revealed that Australia might manipulate their victory margin over Scotland in order to knock England out of the T20 World Cup 2024 if the situation allows.
The exact requirements will become clear after England’s matches against Oman and Namibia – a loss in either will end their tournament. However, Australia could potentially win their final group match by a narrow margin to ensure Scotland advances at England’s expense.
“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 and 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,” Hazlewood stated. “It’ll be interesting to see. We’ve never really been in this position before as a team, I don’t think, so whether we have discussions or not, we’ll just try and play it again the way we did tonight. That’ll be up to people, not me.”
This scenario brings back memories of Australia’s tactical play during the 1999 ODI World Cup against the West Indies, where they adopted a slow batting approach to gain extra points for the Super Sixes.
“Whether you get close and you just knock it around and drag it out,” Hazlewood suggested. “There’s a few options there but…to take confidence from winning and winning well, I think that’s almost more important than potentially trying to knock someone else out. 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.”
With run-rates not carrying forward to the Super Eights in this tournament, Australia’s hopes would not be hindered should they decide to ease off. Hazlewood noted it was odd that group stage performances did not influence the later stages.
“It’s a little bit strange that it doesn’t go through the tournament,” he said. “This is probably the first T20 World Cup I’ve played that’s set up this way, or first World Cup in general that’s set up this way, so it’s a little bit different. I think the work that you do in the round games and if you go through undefeated and have a good net run-rate, doesn’t really account for much once you’re in the Super Eights. So, yeah, it’s a strange one but that’s how it is.”
Namibia could simplify the situation if they manage to upset England in their final game. Captain Gerhard Erasmus remained diplomatic amidst the Australia-England rivalry.
“Obviously, also in the Australian press that will be pretty liked,” he said. “But for us, we’re pretty neutral so I can’t really comment on any of that. We’re here to continue playing at our best abilities. Unfortunately, as the captain I sort of have to say that we haven’t quite reached our full potential in this tournament. I guess you’re all Aussies here, so you’re really cheering us on to maybe try and get that win, but I’d have to rein it back a little bit and say that we probably need to play our best cricket and nothing more than that.”
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