Pat Cummins: It is against Spirit of Cricket to manipulate Scotland match to knock out England

Australia rowed back on manipulating their match with Scotland on Saturday night to knock England out of the T20 World Cup, with Pat Cummins saying it would be against the Spirit of Cricket.

Josh Hazlewood sparked controversy after Australia qualified for the Super Eight stage by saying it would be in his team’s “best interests” to work out a way of eliminating England from the competition.

It then emerged that Mitchell Marsh, Australia’s captain, could be banned by the International Cricket Council if it was proven the team had deliberately allowed Scotland to get close enough to beating them and thus improving their run rate to knock out England. 

Since then Australia have climbed down, claiming Hazlewood was joking, and even involved the Spirit of Cricket.

It is not that long ago, speaking in The Test documentary, that Cummins said “people use the Spirit of Cricket whichever way they want on that day.” Now he has done just that.

“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,” he said. “I was speaking to Joshy, who had a bit of a joke about it the other day, and I 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 [net run rate] is 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.”