Insisting that Josh Hazlewood’s comments were not serious, Australia leader Pat Cummins said he would never have tried to manipulate his net run rate to knock England out of the 2024 T20 World Cup, which would have been “against the Spirit of Cricket”. Pacer Hazlewood sparked controversy when he said the Australians would try to knock England out of the tournament if there was such an opportunity for them in their next Group B match against Scotland.
“I think when you go out and play you’re always doing your best and if you’re not it’s probably against the spirit of cricket. We actually didn’t think too deeply because it (NRR manipulation) never came up,” Cummins told reporters here.
Cummins said he spoke to Hazlewood about the latter’s comments and said the idea about the NRR never figured in anyone’s thought process.
“I was talking to Joshy, who made a joke about this the other day, and I think (his comments) were taken out of context a little bit. We will go there and try to play against Scotland, who have had a very good tournament so far and it will be difficult.
“It (NRR) is something you discuss as one of the quirks of the setup, but in terms of whether it changes the way we play, absolutely not,” offered Cummins.
“I never went onto the field without the mentality of trying to move the game forward and be aggressive, like the guys have done so far,” he added.
Cummins himself would know a little about the Spirit of Cricket as he was in the eye of a storm during the last Ashes when Alex Carey’s defeat of Jonny Bairstow opened the way for heated debate.
However, the scenario of Australia manipulating its NRR no longer exists after England’s victory over Oman on Friday in Antigua.
The win took England’s NRR to 3.08, well ahead of Scotland’s 2.16.
If England can get past Namibia on Saturday and Australia beat Scotland, the Three Lions could enter the Super Eight.
However, if Scotland (5 points) beat Australia, England (3 points) will have to pack their bags.
Senior pacer Mitchell Starc will be available for selection after sitting out the match against Namibia with a sore calf, but Cummins said management had not responded to any requests to rotate players.
“I haven’t spoken to the selectors, so I don’t know what they are thinking. But I wouldn’t be surprised. I know that at the start of the tournament, in a perfect world, we would have a game for almost every member of the team,” he noted.
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