England are on the brink of elimination from the ICC World Cup 2023 after suffering another heavy defeat in the tournament against Sri Lanka in Bengaluru on Thursday.
The defending champions were first bowled out for just 156 at the M Chinnaswamy stadium and them failed to stop the Lankans from overhauling the target in just 25.4 overs.
This was their fourth loss in five games. England have now dropped to ninth position on the points table after this defeat.
The 2019 champions now need to win their remaining four games and hope for some other results to go their way to stand a chance of qualifying for semi-finals, but that looks next to impossible at the moment.
Dejected Buttler takes the blame
England captain Jos Buttler was at a loss for words at the post-match presentation but he refused to put the blame on his players. He instead, took the responsibility of the losses on himself.
"It's been an incredibly tough and incredibly disappointing tournament. Disappointed in myself and all the boys that we haven't shown a good account of ourselves.
"There's no clear answer at the moment [as to why that's the case]. Can't really fault the boys efforts but we're playing a long way short of our best. It starts from the front, as Captain you want to lead from the front and play well and I've been a long way short of my best," Buttler said after the match.
"You don't become a bad player overnight, you don't become a bad team over night. I think that's probably the biggest frustration, that we've been so far short of our best, and for no obvious reason. Just can't put my finger on it at the moment," he added.
Buttler also conceded that making it to the semis is next to impossible for England now and they only have personal pride to play for in the remaining games.
"We haven't been doing the basic things well. The biggest thing is personal pride, whatever happens in the rest of the tournament we want to give a good account of ourselves going forward.."
