Scotland opener Michael Jones has spoken out on Josh Hazlewood’s comments that Australia could lose to Scotland to knock England out of the 2024 T20 World Cup. He was open to help from the Mitchell Marsh-led team, hoping that two teams could solve something.
Scotland will face Australia in their next match of the T20 World Cup 2024. The match between the two teams will be played on Sunday (June 16). A victory for Scotland will take them to the Super 8 stage of the tournament and eliminate England from the event.
Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood recently made a shocking statement and said that Australia will do something that could eliminate England from the T20 World Cup 2024. The Jos Buttler-led team is the defending champion and is in deep trouble in the tournament.
Jos Hazlewood’s statement raised quite a few eyebrows and also after that ICC statement it went viral. According to that governing body’s code of conduct, if there is manipulation of results or execution rates for “strategic or tactical reasons”, it will be punished with a possible two-match suspension for any offending captain.
Michael Jones laughed at Josh Hazlewood’s statement and while highlighting the rivalry between England and Australia, he stated that if the team led by Marsh wants to play to eliminate their rivals, they will be happy days for his team. But he is confident that the 2021 champions will come out firing. Speaking to Independent UK, he explained:
“I was actually watching it live, laughing to myself. I watched that interview and saw (former Australia captain) Tim Paine saying they should play half away. I’m not particularly close to them, I don’t know. Any of them Australian players, but it would be nice if we could talk a little and work something out.
“The rivalry between England and Australia is huge. If they want to play that way, then happy days. We won’t complain. If they want to let David Warner open the bowling or something, that would be great fun. I’m absolutely sure they’ll come out firing like “They do it in every game of every tournament. It’s in the back of your mind that you want the result any way it can come.”
Australians are known for being extremely diligent and extremely professional – Michael Jones
Michael Jones further added that they want to challenge themselves against the best and as a team, they crave those things. He concluded by saying that they would give their best to win the match. He added:
“At the end of the day, our team wants the best result we can get, but on a personal level, you want to challenge yourself against the best. “Having the opportunity to bat against Jofra Archer and Mark Wood, then Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc, are the best in the world. Those are the opportunities we crave as Scotland teams. You want to challenge yourself and see how far you go against those guys.
“The Australians are known for being extremely diligent and extremely professional. I am absolutely sure that they will come out all guns blazing like they do in every match of every tournament. I almost hope they pull out all the stops on Saturday and we can show the world of cricket we are in.” up to the challenge,” concluded