Seamer Josh Hazlewood's remarks regarding Australia possibly manipulating a win margin against Scotland to knock England out of ICC T20 World Cup 2024 have come under the scanner. In case Australia do attempt such an act, their captain Mitchell Marsh could face a ban for up to two matches. (Full Coverage | Cricket News)
If deemed guilty by match officials, Marsh could be charged under Article 2.11 of the ICC's code of conduct, which is conceived to avert the manipulation of games for "inappropriate strategic or tactical reasons… such as when a team deliberately loses a pool match in an ICC Event in order to affect the standings of other teams in that ICC Event."
The code of conduct can also apply to "the inappropriate manipulation of a net run rate" and the team's captain would be held responsible, and charged with a Level Two offence. A minimum sanction of a 50% match fee fine is applicable, and a maximum of four demerit points and two suspension points, depending on the severity of the offence. In case of the maximum punishment, Marsh could be ruled out of Australia's first two Super 8 clashes.
If England win both their remaining matches against Oman and Namibia, Jos Buttler's team's qualification for Super 8s could boil down to net run rate. In such a scenario, a narrow win for Australia over Scotland could put the latter into the Super 8s ahead of England.
Hazlewood made the remark after Australia's win over Namibia, which confirmed their passage to the next stage of the competition. "In this tournament you potentially come up against England at some stage again. 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.
"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 [other] people, not me," Hazlewood said.
"Whether you get close and you just knock it around and drag it out. There's a few options there but… to take confidence from winning and winning well, I think that's almost more important than potentially trying to knock someone else out. They [England] have still got a lot to do on their behalf as well, so I think it'll become clearer the closer we get to that sort of stuff," Hazlewood added.
Meanwhile, England coach Matthew Mott said he hoped Hazlewood's comments were "tongue in cheek". He told BBC Sport: "I am very much hoping it was an off-hand remark by a really good bloke who is having fun. Knowing Josh, he has got a pretty dry sense of humour. I am hoping it was very much tongue in cheek."
