Ahead of his side’s 2024 T20 World Cup Super Eights clash against Bangladesh, Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell revealed that some players from England, whose qualification to the next round was dependent on their arch-rivals’ win over Scotland, were panicking in their dressing room, booking and cancelling their flights while the match went down the wire. Australia will be taking on Bangladesh in their Super Eights clash at Antigua on Friday. Australia finished their Group B on top, with four wins in four matches. Bangladesh finished second in their Group C with three wins and a loss. Australia’s win over Scotland, who ended their campaign at third place with two wins, a loss, a no result and five points, helped England qualify for the Super Eights with five points on the basis of net-run-rate.
Defending champions England will be kickstarting their Super Eights campaign against West Indies at Saint Lucia on Thursday.
Speaking on ESPN’s ‘Around the Wicket’ programme, Maxwell said, “There was almost this interesting part where they dropped Tim David’s catch when there was three runs were required off three balls. When it gets down to the last two-three balls, who knows what is going to happen? Luckily enough, we got over the line and luckily enough, they got through. But I heard it was absolutely chaos. They were in the hotel and there was a fair bit of panic. Guys were booking flights and cancelling etc. It would have been fun being a fly on the wall watching that.”
Maxwell also revealed that he got some texts from England players ahead of the game, saying, “Yeah, just a couple of texts here and there (from England players). It was actually quite funny. There was a lot of chat out in the ground like ‘Are we doing this? Are we seriously going to let England back in?’ It was a pretty interesting game.”
Notably, before the game, Australian pacer Josh Hazlewood had made a statement during the pre-match press conference that it would be in everyone’s best interests if England is knocked out of the tournament early.
“In this tournament, you potentially come up against England at some stage again and…they are probably one of the top few teams on their day and we have 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,” said Hazlewood.
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