Former Australia captain Tim Paine has said that he is all for the Mitchell Marsh-led side to manipulate their result against Scotland in their final T20 World Cup 2024 group stage if it means England is knocked out of the tournament.
England has only one point, but with games against Oman and Namibia remaining, they could enjoy their chances of securing four points and bringing them level with Scotland. Even if Scotland loses to Australia, they will need a higher net run rate.
Tim Paine has stirred the pot with his recent comments on Australia's approach to their final group game against Scotland. Paine advocates for a nuanced strategy that, while ensuring Australia's victory, aims to manipulate the match's outcome to prevent England from advancing to the Super Eights.
"Absolutely they should (manipulate the result) and I'm not even joking. I've spoken to people about this in the last few days. I'm dead serious," Paine told Sen Radio.
With Scotland presently second in the group and with a strong net run rate, England confronts the difficult task of not only winning their remaining games but also relying on external variables, most notably Australia's performance against Scotland, to advance.
Paine's suggestion does not include Australia losing the match against Scotland. Instead, he advocates a deliberate strategy in which Australia wins while tightly managing the net run rate, so affecting England's prospects of progression.
"I'm not sure what the net run rate looks like, you don't have to lose the game, I think they can just let Scotland get close enough. Again, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves, Scotland could have a day out. But say Scotland batted first and got to 140 and we chased it off 19.5 overs to make sure they don't suffer a big net run rate loss," Paine explained.
"I think England have to win both of their games by about 50 runs to even get up towards Scotland's net run rate. So, it's certainly plausible that you can win the game (but still ensure England don't progress)," he added.
On the other hand, Australia speedster Josh Hazlewood echoed the sentiment of strategic gameplay, acknowledging the potential benefits of England's early exit from the tournament.
"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.
But yeah, 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," added the Australian pacer.
(PTI inputs)
