Australia would never have manipulated England's exit, says Pat Cummins - Cricket Winner

Australia captain Pat Cummins has said that Australia would never have done something like manipulating their net run rate to knock England out of the T20 World Cup 2024 and he also believed any such tactics would be against the Spirit of Cricket as well.

However, the scenario where Australia could have won against Scotland by a close enough margin to knock England out won’t be possible now as England thrashed Oman in record style to boost their net run rate over Scotland’s as well, which means if they beat Namibia then Scotland will have to beat Australia to qualify for the Super Eight as well.

“Haven’t really thought too deeply because it’s never really popped up” – Pat Cummins on knocking England out

However, recently Josh Hazlewood sparked debate by saying that it would be every team’s, especially Australia’s “best interest” to knock England out of the T20 World Cup if they had the opportunity. But Cummins, who himself faced the Spirit of Cricket debate around Jonny Bairstow’s stumping in the Ashes at Lord’s last year, said that it’s a tactic that would never have been considered and he also shared that Hazlewood’s comments were not serious too.

“I think when you go out and play you are trying your best every time and if you are not, that’s probably against the spirit of cricket,” he said to the reporters in St Lucia before the result of the England-Oman match. “Haven’t really thought too deeply because it’s never really popped up.”

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“I was speaking to Joshy, who had a bit of a joke about it the other day, and think it got taken a little bit out of context. We’ll go there and just try and play Scotland who have had a really good tournament so far and will be tough. It’s [net run rate] something you kind of discuss as one of the quirks of the set-up but in terms of does it change the way we play, absolutely not. I’ve never stepped into the field without the mindset of trying to take the game on and be aggressive, like the guys have so far,” he again added.

Australia are likely to rotate players against Scotland

However, Australia are likely to rest some key players against Scotland. Cameron Green, Josh Inglis and Ashton Agar are yet to play and there’s a chance all three could be given a chance as well. Meanwhile, Mitchell Starc is available after missing the Namibia game after suffering some calf soreness against England as well. Cummins was earlier rested from the first match against Oman with Nathan Ellis coming into the side on both occasions as well.

“I haven’t spoken to the selectors or anyone, so I don’t know what they’re thinking,” Cummins said. “But I wouldn’t be surprised. I know going into the start of the tournament, in a perfect world, we’d get a game into just about all the squad members.”

“It’s a bit of a luxury now in this first section of the tournament but once we get to the Super Eights don’t think they’ll be any resting. Definitely [can play all the games], we are used to playing Test cricket so four overs is a breeze. There’s no workload issues at all. You start prioritising sleep, refuelling and those kind of things but in terms of getting up for the game, it’s fine. We’ve done it loads of times, loads of IPL games are kind of play, fly to the other side of the country and play again. Same with BBL. It’s not necessarily new. It will be busy but we are kind of used to it,” Pat Cummins concluded.