England’s head coach, Matthew Mott, says he hopes Josh Hazlewood was joking about the possibility of Australia manipulating an early exit for the T20 World Cup defending champions.
However, he admitted his team could do little else but focus on victory against Oman on Thursday and hope the ongoing debate over run-rate calculations turns out in their favor.
England will face Oman in their Group B match on Thursday at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium. England faces the possibility of being ousted from the tournament. After their washout against Scotland and losing to Australia, the defending champions are fourth in Group B and will be eliminated if they lose to either Oman or Namibia.
Australia has already qualified for the Super Eights, and if Scotland beats or loses to them by a tiny margin in their next game on Sunday, they may also advance to the Super Eights alongside the 2021 champions.
In the pre-match press conference, Australia pacer Hazlewood stated that removing England would benefit everyone.
“In this tournament, you potentially come up against England at some stage again and they are probably one of the top few teams on their day and we have 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 had said, according to ESPNcricinfo.
Australia can do it, but it will come with a risk. Their captain Mitchell Marsh might be banned for two games if Australia were deemed by the umpires to have contravened Article 2.11 of the ICC’s code of conduct, which pertains to the “inappropriate strategic or tactical” manipulation of matches.
“He has got a very good sense of humor”- England coach Matthew Mott on Josh Hazlewood’s remark
England coach Mott, who coached Hazlewood while at New South Wales, dismissed the remarks as an example of his “tongue-in-cheek” style of humor.
“I think I know Josh pretty well and I know his integrity. He has got a very good sense of humour and 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 offhand remark by a really good bloke who is having fun,” Matthew Mott said as per ESPNCricinfo.
In any case, the possibility of a run-rate squabble is something England could do without, considering their lack of fluency in the tournament thus far.
“Regardless of any outside noise about qualification, run-rates, all that sort of stuff, essentially, we’ve got to win this game and we’ve spoken a lot about that. We’ve played good T20 cricket for a while now. It didn’t quite come off against Australia last game but I think we’ve got our structure in place, we’re really confident. Those who saw us train yesterday, you can see a buoyant group, up and about, that’s ready for the challenge ahead,” Mott added.
To offset any run-rate shenanigans, England needs to beat Oman and Namibia by a combined margin of 117 runs (or the equivalent when chasing), thereby hauling their net run-rate above Scotland’s so that only a surprise defeat of Australia can prevent them from progressing.