Given the current scenario, Scotland are the favourites to maintain second place and advance to the Super 8s stage.
Defending champions England are in a precarious position after a poor start to their T20 World Cup 2024 campaign and face the risk of an early exit. The Three Lions lost against Australia in their last fixture which followed a washed-out game against Scotland.
Speaking about the group standings, Australia are at the top of Group B with three wins from three games. Scotland is placed second with 5 points from three games and has a healthy net run-rate as well.
On the other hand, England currently has one point from two matches played and are ranked fourth in the group standings. With two more games left, England will need to secure a win in both fixtures by comprehensive margins to give themselves a shot at qualifying for the Super 8s stage.
Given the current scenario, Scotland are the favourites to maintain second place and advance to the next stage.
To make things further easier for Scotland, Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood has hinted that the Aussies will ensure to manipulate England’s exit.
“If we can get them out of the tournament, that’s in our best interest” 👀
Australia bowler Josh Hazlewood says he’d be open to the possibility of easing up on Scotland in their last group game to help knock out England. pic.twitter.com/bfXEH9evjr
— Sky Sports Cricket (@SkyCricket) June 12, 2024
To put things into perspective, if Australia win against Scotland, both the teams will go through and England will be eliminated in all likelihood even if they win their remaining games as Scotland have a good NRR.
Australia and Scotland play each other in their final group-stage match on June 16.
Speaking to reporters after Australia’s win over Namibia earlier today (June 12), Hazlewood said,
“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 and 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.”
Hazlewood added, “It’ll be interesting to see. We’ve never really been in this position before as a team, I don’t think, so whether we have discussions or not, we’ll just try and play it again the way we did tonight. That’ll be up to people, not me.”
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