England will keep an eye, but can’t control what happens: Jonny Bairstow

England batter Jonny Bairstow understood that their qualification fate for the T20 World Cup 2024 would be in the hands of the Australia vs Scotland game.

He suggested that the team would keep an eye on the game but can’t control as to what happens. England did what they could, as they won by 41 runs against Namibia in a rain-marred match. Much to England’s relief, they managed a victory after the match was on the verge of a washout due to the rain. However, that would not be enough as England would want Australia to beat Scotland in order to qualify for the Super 8 stage.

After the rain nearly threatened to put England out of the tournament, the match was reduced to 11 overs per side. Another spell of rain further reduced the match to 10 overs per side and England batted really well to put 122 runs on the board. Harry Brook slammed an unbeaten 47 from just 20 balls.

Will England watch AUS vs SCO

“Look, we can’t, I’m sure we’ll be keeping an eye on it for sure, but at the same time, there’s not much we can do about what happens over there, so yeah, we’ll be keeping an eye on it of course. We will, but at the same time, we’ve done everything that’s in our hands. Now to go through, there was a lot of chat about the net run rate,” Bairstow said in the pre-match press-conference.

Bairstow also scored a quickfire 31 from just 18 balls as the England bowlers managed to restrict Namibia to 84 runs.
The England batter admitted that they were outplayed by the Australian team in the Group B encounter. However, he was happy with how the team had a turnaround to up their net-run-rate over Scotland.

“There was a lot of chat about all of that stuff. We’ve overcome that net run rate, and we’ve overcome the challenges that have been put in front of us. And as a group, we’ve stuck together really tightly. That Australia game was a tough game, and they outplayed us in that, fair play to them. But the way that we’ve responded as a group, how tight we’ve stayed over the last week or so, we’ve accepted the challenge that’s been put in front of us, and we’ve responded very well to that,” Bairstow added.