Ashes pain forgiven? England rescued by old foe

For Scotland, this was T20 World Cup heartache - with Chris Sole's dropped catch in the final over only adding to 36 hours of cruel sporting misery.

For England, Australia’s gripping victory against Scotland - which knocked out the Scots and sent Jos Buttler’s side through to the Super 8s - offered pure relief, served up by their oldest cricketing rivals.

Last summer Travis Head was pounding England bowlers in an attempt to win back the Ashes urn.

He was in the middle on that final day at The Oval with Smith, the pair threatening to take Australia home before Stuart Broad’s grand finale.

Eighteen months earlier, during England’s most recent venture down under, Head flogged Ben Stokes et al around Brisbane in a blistering century.

It was only the second day of the series, but England would never recover from it.

This time each of his 68 runs, including three sixes in three momentum-swinging deliveries late on, will have been celebrated by every English fan following the events through the early hours of Sunday morning.

When six catches were dropped – the most by any team in the history of the men’s competition – the conspiracy theorists were no doubt stretching for their keyboards, especially in the light of Josh Hazlewood’s comments this week.

At one stage in their chase, Australia, who were already qualified for the Super 8s and allowed Scotland to pile up 180-5 - their highest total at a T20 World Cup - needed 89 from seven overs.

England fans should not have worried.

Resisting going all out for a win is not the Australian way. Perhaps they just wanted England fans to sweat along the way.

“More externally than internally,” captain Mitchell Marsh said afterwards, when asked about the noise about the results ramification on England.

“We won today and that’s all that matters.”

The result is England move on to St Lucia, having looked certain to be on the next flight to London despite their own dramatic win over Namibia on Saturday.

And this was supposed to be the easy part; qualification from a group that should not have led to such drama for the defending champions.

Instead, jeopardy has been around their campaign since their opening game against Scotland was washed out before defeat by Australia last Saturday heaped on more pressure.

Yet England deserve credit for the way they have responded since.

They dispatched Oman then Namibia, achieving the swing in net run-rate that has ultimately sent Richie Berrington's Scotland home.

Against Namibia they coped well with the stress of the Antiguan weather, which threatened to send them home even before the Scots came agonisingly close.

England have pointed to a relaxed training session at the old Antigua Recreation Ground on Tuesday – a morning of practice that turned into a six-hitting contest in the nets – as evidence of a camp that is together.

They know they have been here before.

They won this tournament in the Caribbean in 2010 having scrambled through the group stage thanks to their net run-rate.

They had a similarly sketchy start to winning the title 12 years later in Melbourne.

Momentum has been one of their closest friends of late.

But still there are questions about how much we have really learned about this England side under captain Buttler and coach Matthew Mott in the past two weeks.

Through they go, but have they put their dismal defence of the 50-over World Cup last autumn behind them?

Wins against two associate sides, improving outfits nonetheless, are not enough to say conclusively.

Ten ropey overs against Scotland before the rain and the defeat by Australia in Barbados point to the contrary.

England, though, will now take their place in a Super 8s group that includes South Africa, co-hosts West Indies and the intriguing prospect of the USA.

It is a quartet with no obvious favourite.

The hosts, who England play first in the early hours of Thursday morning, were almost beaten by Papua New Guinea in their first game, South Africa escaped by the margin of one run against Nepal on Saturday while the US will no longer have home advantage with the group played solely in the Caribbean.

If England progress, a semi-final or final against Australia could await again.

There, you suspect, the Australians would be far less charitable.

-bbc