The defending champions had their aura of invincibility shattered following a humiliating defeat at the hands of a resurgent South Africa at the Wankhede Stadium on Friday night.
Having suffered three losses in four games and with upcoming matches against in-form teams like India, Australia, alongside Pakistan, Jos Buttler’s side finds itself the at risk of not making it to the last four of the tournament. Although there is still a mathematical chance of turning their fortunes around, the situation is becoming increasingly precarious. “Yeah, it’s going to be incredibly difficult. We haven’t left ourselves any margin from this point in,” Jos Buttler conceded. “But we’ll keep the belief.”
England’s performance in the tournament has been less than stellar, with losses to New Zealand, South Africa, and Afghanistan. Their upcoming schedule includes a match against the host nation, India, in Lucknow on October 29, following a contest against Sri Lanka in Bengaluru on October 26. They will then return to the venue where they initially faced New Zealand in the tournament opener, to meet Australia on November 4 before clashing with the Netherlands in Pune on November 5. Their final league game will be against Pakistan at Eden Gardens on November 11. The defending champions are walking a tightrope, and any additional loss in these matches could spell doom for their campaign.
“It certainly leaves us in a tough position. There’s no room for error from here on in. That’s going to be incredibly tough, but we’ll sit down and go again. That’s all you can do in this situation.” Buttler tried to put up a brave front. “Yeah, with complete honesty, I think it’s obvious that we’re not performing to our best. It’s my job as captain and along with the rest of the team to work out how we can get back to playing that brand of cricket and the style and not just only that, but sort of just playing to our potential and getting back to our best.
“So, comes down to a lot of that. A few things here and there which we need to keep challenging ourselves on and working on and in this situation that’s all you can do. It certainly won’t be anyone giving up or having those kind of thoughts. We’ll just have to dust ourselves down and stick our chests out and go again.”
England needed to chase 400 which was virtually impossible to reach given the pace power that South Africa possessed. Buttler conceded he hoped to chase 340-350 and not 400, which was made possible for South Africa by Heinrich Klaasen (109) and Marcon Jensen (75 not out). Together they added 151 runs for the sixth wicket at a breakneck speed of close to 200 strike rate.
“I think that was the main bit of the game. We had them five down there, and if we could have found a way to break that partnership and take another wicket, you know, we could have looked like restricting them to 340 or 350, which probably would have been a really good chase on that pitch. I think getting up to 400 was an excellent score, it sort of took the wind away from us and it was always going to be tough from there, we needed everything to go perfect to pull off a chase like that,” Buttler felt.
There was a bit of tension regarding the way Klaasen celebrated, with a roar towards bowler Mark Wood. However, the matter was resolved on the field. “I think he was obviously emotional to score 100. I don’t think he needed to celebrate in Mark Wood’s face and credit to him, he recognized that a couple of seconds after and he apologized. They played a great knock and I think he apologized straight away so there’s no ill feelings there,” Buttler revealed.
