Mumbai: England had played some good cricket coming into the ICC Men’s World Cup, but they have fumbled in the first two games so far at the Wankhede stadium. They got closely over the line against minnows Nepal and lost by 30 runs to West Indies.
Harry Brook-led side had won T20I series 3-0 in West Indies, 1-1 in South Africa, 2-0 in Ireland, 1-0 in New Zealand and more recently 3-0 in Sri Lanka. England had handled spin smartly in Sri Lanka but fumbled against West Indies on Wednesday and to certain against Nepal also.
Brook reckoned it may be due to World Cup pressure that they were “more careful” in chase.
“We have handled spin quite well in Sri Lanka. We were too careful in chase, me included. I would have preferred to get out caught on the boundary than the way I got out today. That's part of T20 Cricket. He (Gudakesh Motie) was probably the main threat atthe time and I tried to rotate strike and nudge him on the legside and get Sam (Curran) back on strike," Brook said at the post match press conference on Wednesday.
Brook scored 17 off 14 balls and wasn't able to capitalise on the bisk starts from Phil Salt, Jos Buttler and Jacob Bethell. England lost way in the middle as West Indies spinners Motie and Roston Chase ran through the middle-order to restrict England to 166 all out and secure win by 30 runs in Group C match. Brooke got a leading edge and Motie took a good catch on his own bowling.
"With the power that we have at the back end, myself included, I thought I could have taken a risk a little bit earlier knowing we still had Jacksy (Will Jacks), and Jamie Overton to come in. With that power and that depth that we have, we do think we can chase almost anything. Obviously today, we didn't."
England have two matches remaining against Italy and Scotland and theere won't be much panic in the camp considering two teams will progress to Super Eights from each Group and no team will carry points forward.
"Thank god we won against Nepal the other night. Otherwise we'd be in a tricky situation," Brook said on a lighter note.
