Australia all-rounder Glenn Maxwell has revealed that he received texts from England players before their last league stage match against Scotland in ongoing T20 World Cup. It is to be noted that England needed arch-rivals Australia to beat Scotland and a win over Namibia in their own match to qualify for the knockout stage.
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A comment by Aussie pacer Josh Hazlewood before the match where he suggested that keeping England out of tournament would be in their best interest sparked ‘spirit of game’ debate. Australia’s Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins, however, maintained that a comment made in jest was taken out of context.
England player, nonetheless, thought it was best to check with Aussies instead of waiting given the history between two teams.
“Yeah, just a couple of texts here and there. 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?” said Maxwell on ESPN’s ‘Around the Wicket’ podcast.
Australia eventually won the game with five wickets and two balls to spare in chase of 181.
“There was almost this interesting part where they dropped Tim David’s catch when there was 3 required off 3. When it gets down to the last 2-3 balls, who knows what’s 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 booking flights and cancelling etc. Would have been fun being a fly on the wall watching that,” he added.
England, on the other hand, won their match against Namibia despite the rain interruption and kept their title defence campaign on track. England are in Group 2 of Super Eight stage with South Africa, USA and West Indies
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