‘In our best interest’: Australia ready to exploit T20 World Cup loophole to eliminate England

Josh Hazlewood has confessed it would be in Australia’s “best interest” to manipulate the result of this weekend’s T20 World Cup match against Scotland to knock England out of the tournament.

England, who suffered a 36-run loss to Australia last week, needs to defeat Oman and Namibia and finish the group stage with a higher net run rate than Scotland to qualify for the Super Eights and avoid elimination.

The reigning champions are therefore relying on their two biggest rivals, Australia and Scotland, for any chance of defending the title they won in 2022.

Australia has an opportunity to exploit a flaw in the T20 World Cup point system, defeating Scotland by a narrow margin to ensure their opponent’s net run rate remains above England.

Each nation’s net run rate does not carry through the Super Eight stage of the tournament, meaning there is no incentive for Australia to push for a heavy victory over Scotland.

“If you got through undefeated and have a good net run rate, it doesn’t count for much,” Hazlewood told reporters during Wednesday’s post-match press conference in Antigua.

“It’s a strange one.”

England’s final group-stage game against Namibia finishes around four hours before Australia clashes with Scotland, meaning Mitchell Marsh’s men will have time to calculate the exact margin of victory required for England to be knocked out.

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Hazlewood conceded that Australia’s chances of winning the T20 World Cup would improve if England was eliminated during the group stage.

“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,” Hazlewood continued.

“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.

“It’ll be interesting to see. (We’ve) never really been in this position before as a team, I don’t think.

“Whether we have discussions or not, or we just try and play again the way we played tonight, that’ll be up to people, not me.”

Meanwhile, England and Pakistan will also be praying the rain holds off to keep their T20 World Cup campaigns alive.

Both nations, the finalists from the previous edition of the tournament, got their campaigns off to slow starts, with Pakistan suffering a shock loss to the United States of America in Dallas.

England and Pakistan need to win all of their remaining group-stage matches for any chance of qualifying for the Super Eights, but the forecasts in Florida and Antigua are less than promising, with a washout all that’s needed to knock them out of the tournament.

GROUP A

India, United States of America, Pakistan, Canada, Ireland

The winner of Thursday morning’s clash between India and the United States of America will automatically qualify for the Super Eights, while there’s an intriguing battle for the other slot.

It is still mathematically possible for any nation in Group A to qualify, with host nation the USA needing just one win from their remaining matches against India or Canada.

But for Pakistan, the situation is slightly more complicated — Babar Azam’s men need to defeat Ireland and boost their net run rate above the USA, but even then they’re relying on other results and weather.

Meanwhile, it would take a miracle for either Canada or Ireland to finish in the top two.

Ladder

1. India — 4 points (+1.455)

2. USA — 4 points (+0.626)

3. Pakistan — 2 points (+0.191)

4. Canada — 2 points (-0.493)

5. Ireland — 0 points (-1.712)

Remaining matches