Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh): England's continued implosions and their disastrous World Cup campaign come with connotations that will go much beyond this edition. The biggest of them all is the spectre of Jos Buttler’s squad not qualifying for the 2025 Champions Trophy in Pakistan, unless they figure in the top eight on the points tally for the ongoing campaign.
Chief coach Matthew Mott said he had got to know about the qualification scenario only "about an hour and a half ago. The ICC change the rules quite a bit with qualification. To be honest, I don't think it would affect in any way, the way we've played in this tournament so it's not a big deal."
He, however, admitted that performance needs to be resurrected. "We can't just turn. up. We've got to turn up and play and win these games. We're up against good teams in those last few games. So, that's plenty of motivation for us to pick ourselves back up off the canvas and keep trying to throw punches,” he added.
The English team managers, coaches and the players have been under a lot of criticism and speculation about their perceived disinterest in the 50-over white ball cricket, especially after the 2019 World Cup winning captain Eoin Morgan said on Sky TV that there is something amiss in the Poms dressing room which is contributing to its on-the-trot defeats in the Indian edition.
Mott, however, was vociferous in his denial of any such eventuality having struck his boys and insisted that the team remains an "incredibly tight-knit unit" despite the 100-run thrashing by India in England’s fifth defeat at the Cricket World Cup.
But Eoin Morgan insisted otherwise, saying the splits in the camp were causing collective failure of the talented eleven both with the bat and the ball. "I don't think that at all. I think anyone that's inside our tent would say that despite our results, we're an incredibly tight-knit unit," he said.
While he cited examples of fun training activities and camaraderie among the players, he denied any knowledge of what Eoin Morgan has been suggesting. "I can only say from my opinion the group's been incredibly strong in that part. If you see our training sessions, they're full of fun. People are putting their arm around each other, trying to help them. Eoin's entitled to his opinion. He's been away for a couple of weeks with the birth of his child. He hasn't been in and around the rooms,” he said.
The latest defeat against India in Lucknow makes it the fifth loss on the trot for England who have so far played six ODIs thus far in this marquee tournament. For all practical purposes, England are out of the semifinal.
This despite the bowlers giving some meaningful deliveries in the first half of the match, restricting the batters to 229/9, they lost the plot faced by the incredible brilliance of the Indian arm. "It's tough. I'm sick of coming up and speaking to you guys about the same thing, but that's what professional sport is. We've got to keep pushing hard here. We've got a fair bit to play for to the back end of this tournament," he said.
England’s only rosy performance has been the cordon their bowlers lay around the Indian batters at Ekana, keeping the total down to 229, achievable on the Lucknow surface. "The first half we did our job, the second half was one would rather forget and we've got to find a way. There's some world-class players in there that unfortunately aren't scoring the runs that they're used to scoring,” he said.
Mott saw some currency in the squad which has been fielding one disaster after another amid the talk of players being disinterested in the 50-over game. "I was pleased at the halfway mark. It was definitely our best bowling and fielding effort. We went out to bat with a lot of positivity, it being an achievable total. There was a lot of dew out there as well. We got none for 30 and were well placed but then you lose four for 10, you put yourself under pressure,” he said.
Interestingly, if one looks at looks at the year, England has played just four one-day internationals leading up to the 50-over ODI World Cup in what the coach says has been an extremely heavy workload.
For a team that holds two World Cups in two formats – ODI and T20 – the current situation is more bewildering than depressing, raising pertinent questions for the England Cricket Board (ECB) to sort out in the upcoming annual time-table.
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