Australia captain Mitchell Marsh could face a ban if his team is found guilty of manipulating any margin of victory over Scotland in an attempt to knock England out of the ongoing ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024.
Former champions Australia blew away Namibia by nine wickets as they chased down the modest 72-run target in 5.4 overs to qualify for the Super 8s with one game to spare.
They will face Scotland in their last group-stage fixture which could decide England’s fate in the T20 World Cup 2024 even if they manage to beat Oman and Namibia in their remaining group matches.
Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood hinted at the possibility of exploiting England’s difficulty in the tournament in the post-match press conference.
“In this tournament, you potentially come up against England at some stage again and they’re probably one of the top few teams on their day,” stated Hazlewood.
“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’s I think.
“It will be interesting to see, never really been in this position before as a team I don’t think.
“Whether we have discussions or not, or we just try and play again the way we played tonight, that will be up to people, not me.”
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Hazlewood’s comments hint at the possibility of Australia winning their match against Scotland with a narrow margin to knock England out of the tournament on net run-rate.
However, if they proceed with this tactic, their skipper may get banned for two matches ahead of the Super Eight stage, where each team will play three matches.
Mitchell Marsh could be charged under Article 2.11 of the ICC’s code of conduct, which is designed to prevent 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 also applies to “the inappropriate manipulation of a net run rate” and the captain would be held responsible, and charged with a Level Two offence.
The captain may face a minimum sanction of a 50% match fee fine, with a maximum of four demerit points and two suspension points, depending on the severity of the offence. Two suspension points would rule Marsh out of Australia’s first two Super Eight matches.
It is worth mentioning that reigning champions England are in a tough situation, pertaining to their qualification to the Super 8s stage of the T20 World Cup as they are fourth in Group B with just one point in two matches.
The defending champions had their campaign opener against Scotland washed out before they succumbed to a 36-run defeat against arch-rivals Australia.
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