T20 World Cup: Australia never considered manipulating result to eliminate England, says Pat Cumins

Pat Cummins has insisted that Australia never considered manipulating the result of their forthcoming T20 World Cup match against Scotland to knock out England.

Prior to their emphatic win over Oman on Thursday, England appeared to be struggling to qualify for the Super 8s.

That was largely down to having a vastly inferior net run-rate to Scotland and seamer Josh Hazlewood suggested Australia might try to make it as difficult as possible for England to progress.

However, Cummins says that Hazlewood’s remarks were made in jest.

“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,” said Cummins, speaking after England overturned their net run-rate deficit in beating Oman.

“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.”

While net run-rate is much less of a concern for England now, they still need beat Namibia in Antigua on Saturday (18:00 BST) to maintain a chance of going through.

Should they do so, Jos Buttler’s side would require Australia to beat Scotland in St Lucia on Sunday (01:30 BST) in order to progress.

A win for Scotland, or a washed out game, would see them reach the Super 8s.

There is a scenario where England win narrowly and Scotland loss and the latter still progress on net run-rate because that is calculated as an average across all matches.