T20 World Cup – Josh Hazlewood – Knocking England out early is ‘good for us’

While the exact figures won’t be known until England play Oman and Namibia – defeats in both would end their tournament – there is a strong possibility that Australia could win their final group game by a narrow enough margin to ensure Scotland go through at England’s expense.

“In this tournament you might face England again at some point and…they’re probably one of the few top teams on their day and we’ve struggled against them in T20 cricket, so if we can get them out. of a tournament that benefits us and everyone,” said Hazlewood. “It’s going to be interesting to see. We’ve never been in this position as a team, I don’t think, so whether we have discussions or not, we’re just going to try and play it the way we did. Tonight that’s going to be about the people, not me.”

“Or you get close and you just knock it and drag it out,” Hazlewood suggested of how it could play out. “There’s a few options there but…the confidence in winning and winning well, I think that’s probably more important than trying to knock somebody out. They still have a lot to do for themselves, so. I think it’ll be more clear when we get closer to that kind of stuff.”

Since the run rates do not advance to the Super Eights in this tournament, there will be no damage to Australia’s hopes if they take their foot off the gas. For that reason, Hazlewood admitted that he thought it was strange that no benefits were taken from the group stage game.

“We are surprised that the competition does not pass,” he said. “It’s probably the first T20 World Cup I’ve played that’s been organized like this, or the first World Cup organized like this, so it’s a little bit different. I think the work you do in the round-robin games once you’re unbeaten and have a good run-rate, it doesn’t matter as much once you get into the Super Eights, yeah , it’s weird but it’s true.

“Obviously, it will be very popular in the Australian press as well,” he said. “But for us we’re neutral so I can’t comment on all that. We’re here to continue playing to our abilities. Unfortunately as captain I have to say we haven’t done that. We’ve reached our full potential in this tournament I think you’re all Aussies here, so you’re really encouraging us to maybe try to get that’s a win, but I’d have to take it back a bit and say we. maybe we need to play our best cricket and nothing more than that.”