England v Oman Report Card

Featuring being annoyed by Josh Hazlewood and thrashing Oman

Being Annoyed By Josh Hazlewood
Grade: A

Heading into this match between England and Oman, all the talk, naturally, was about Josh Hazlewood.

In the aftermath of the Australia v Namibia game, Hazlewood had wandered into the press conference and dropped some off-the-cuff musings about how, if the opportunity arose, Australia might consider taking it easy on Scotland to drag them through to the Super Eight stage ahead of England. (Because even if Australia defeated Scotland, the worst Scotland could finish is level on competition points with England, with net run rate deciding which of the two sides proceeded to the next stage.)

Needless to say, England supporters immediately worked themselves into a lather of indignation at Hazlewood’s contemplations, with MCC members leading from the tut-tutting front by immediately chartering a plane to St Lucia so they could be at the ground to express their portly, ruddy-faced, spittle-spraying, inbred outrage in collective person.

BAD AI IMAGE OF: MCC members on their way to tell the Australians what they think

England journalists, meanwhile, put down their rum, put on a shirt and went to work. They located relevant codes of conduct that prohibit the manipulation of net run rates in tournaments and issued grave warnings that the ICC could fine the Australians or suspend Mitch Marsh if they were found guilty of any such misdemeanours. Seems a bit unfair of the ICC to be policing these kinds of shenanigans. After all, to paraphrase renowned philosopher Marcus Harris, ‘you designed the tournament format, you fucken idiots’.

Hopefully, however, Cricket Australia conduct an internal investigation and suspend Hazlewood for one match. Plus any other squad members who’ve pondered toying with England in such a cruel fashion. And if that means Australia can’t field a team and have to forfeit to Scotland, that’s a small price to pay to restore team integrity.