The story that created that hot news, ‘ Mitch Marsh could face ban,’ was England’s chance of reaching the Super 8 in the T20 World Cup in 2024, which directly depended on Scotland losing to Australia.
A victory for Scotland will knock England out who have lost one match so far while their opening game against Scotland was washed out. Scotland has won two matches so far besides earning one point from the washout game.
Australia is trying to take sarcastic advantage of this story
After beating Namibia in their T20 World Cup group stage game on Wednesday (June 12), Australia seamer Josh Hazlewood said his team could manipulate any margin of win against Scotland to ensure England fails to qualify for the Super Eight.
With Australia sealing its Super Eight spot already, they will likely play their benched players in their final group game before pulling up their socks for the next stage.
Unsure if he was serious about those remarks or if it was a casual loose talk case, Hazlewood said Australia would not like facing England later in the semis (knowing the Poms hold a better record against them in the T20Is), and if they have to manipulate the result against Scotland for that, they will.
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Exact Statement of Josh Hazlewood
In this tournament, you potentially come up against England at some stage again,” Hazlewood said after Australia’s win over Namibia.
“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,” he continued.
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.
If Australia decided to do so, Mitchel Marsh could face ban
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.
Will this exactly be the case that Mitchel Marsh could face ban?
In practice, it is likely difficult for umpires to say categorically Australia had deliberately attempted to manipulate net run rate, barring a clear and obvious shift in tempo late in the match to delay the outcome. Regardless, Australian coach Andrew McDonald will likely consider making changes to the team to rest crucial players with nothing on the line in their final pool fixture against Scotland.
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