Cummins denies Australia will manipulate T20 World Cup clash against Scotland

Australian pacer Pat Cummins has dismissed any idea of Australia manipulating their game against Scotland to knock England out of the T20 World Cup, stating it goes against the spirit of the game.

This comes after teammate Josh Hazlewood joked about potentially affecting the outcome in order to knock their arch-rivals England out of the tournament. Cummins emphasized that Hazlewood's comments were not serious.

England, meanwhile, kept their tournament hopes alive by defeating Oman, moving ahead of Scotland in Net Run Rate (NRR). To advance, England must beat Namibia and hope Australia narrowly beats Scotland.

Cummins, ahead of the England-Oman game in St Lucia., reiterated the importance of playing fairly and aiming to win every game.

"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," Cummins said.

"Haven't really thought too deeply because it's never really popped up.

"I was speaking to Joshy (Hazlewood), who had a bit of a joke about it the other day, and 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's [net run rate] 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,” he added.

He mentioned that he never played cricket with a mindset other than that of winning.

"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,” Cummins said.

With Australia already advancing to the next round, they might test benched players like Cameron Green, Josh Inglis, and Ashton Agar. However, Cummins said he hasn’t discussed potential rotations with the selectors.

"I haven't spoken to the selectors or anyone, so I don't know what they're thinking," Cummins said of the option to rotate players. "But I wouldn't be surprised. I know going into the start of the tournament, in a perfect world, we'd get a game into just about all the squad members."