New York: Australia fast-bowler Josh Hazlewood said the chance to knock out defending champions England out of the Men’s T20 World Cup would be in the best interest of the side as well as for the other teams in the competition.
His comments come after Australia chased down Namibia's 72 in just 5.4 overs to remain unbeaten in the tournament and secure their qualification for the Super Eight stage. They now need a narrow win over Scotland to ensure England are out of the competition even if the Jos Buttler-led side wins over Namibia and Oman.
"In this tournament, you potentially come up against England at some stage again. As I said, they're probably one of the top few teams, on the day, we've had some real struggles against them in T20 cricket.
"If we can get them out of the tournament then that's in our best interests as well as probably everyone else. It's a weird thing to say. I've never really been in this position before as a team. I don't think so. Whether we have discussions or not or we just try and play it again the way we did tonight. Again, that'll be up to people, not me," said Hazlewood in the post-match press conference.
He also said it would be strange that Australia don’t get to carry forward their high net run rate of 3.580 from their Group B campaign to the Super Eight stage. "It's a little bit strange it (net run rate) doesn't go through the tournament. This is the first World Cup I've played that's been set up this way. It's a bit different."
"The work you do in the round games, if you go through undefeated and have a good net run rate, it doesn't really count for much once you're in the Super Eights. It's a strange one but that's how it is," said Hazlewood.
