When they sat down in their team hotel in Antigua to watch events to the south in St Lucia, England’s players were first greeted by the news that Australia had rested two of their leading pacemen: Hazlewood and Cummins.

‘No, we were just terrible.’

Mitchell Starc when asked if there were any excuses for Australia’s fielding

Ashton Agar opened the bowling for Mitchell Marsh, and the left-arm spinner proved a pricey experiment; Agar and Glenn Maxwell’s eight overs went for no less than 83 on an equable surface, a large contributor to Scotland’s total.

Meanwhile, a rare wicketless outing for Starc was made possible by the grassing of catches from three consecutive balls – the first when Adam Zampa missed a chance on the boundary, before Marsh and then wicketkeeper Matthew Wade shelled consecutive opportunities from Maxwell’s bowling.

That a wicket followed the very next ball, Matt Cross clumping a full toss to deep mid-wicket, did not obscure the fact it was a slipshod display by the Australians after a trio of sharp performances to confirm qualification for the Super Eights. Six catches went down in all.

“No, we were just terrible,” Starc said when asked if there were any excuses for the fielding. “We were certainly off the mark in the field with dropped catches and probably some other areas that were a bit sloppy as well. [It’s] good to get that stuff out of the way, and now we’re into the pointy end.”

Scotland’s discipline with the ball would mirror their endeavour with the bat. David Warner was gone early, Marsh did not take long to follow, and Maxwell was confounded by a classic piece of left-arm spin by Mark Watt – turning just enough to take the off bail.

With 10 overs remaining, the Australians needed all of 107 runs; with seven to go, they still needed 89. Stoinis, who did not bowl, signalled the charge with a pair of sixes and then a boundary in the 14th over, before Head swatted three sixes from as many legal deliveries in the 16th.

Head and then Stoinis were out before the job was completely done. But they did so in the knowledge that the muscular and creative Tim David (24 not out off 14 balls) was waiting in the wings to mop up most of the final 40 runs – aided by a drop from Chris Sole with three runs still required.

So Buttler’s team qualified because Australia won handily, thus upholding the spirit of cricket in English eyes. They may meet again before this tournament is over.

News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.