England, led by Jos Buttler, never looked like a team to beat at this World Cup. They have struggled right through and have now lost four of their first five matches. Their semifinal qualification chances have more or less vanished and though they are mathematically still in contention, other results need to go their way.
Meanwhile, while speaking to Sky Sports Cricket, their head coach Matthew Mott has opened up on the team's dismal show in the mega event this time around. England were expected to beat Sri Lanka in Bengaluru on Thursday (October 26) but they were shot for 156 runs after opting to bat first and lost the match by eight wickets. Even their net run-rate has taken a massive hit and Mott admitted that their campaign has more or less ended in this World Cup.
"Mathematically, we'd have to have a lot of things go our way, As I said leading up today, we could control it from there, but it certainly hasn't done our net run-rate any help at all and, depending on others... we'll keep fronting, we'll keep treating each game in isolation and try and salvage some really good stuff out the back end of this. But realistically, we're in bit of trouble, for sure," Mott said.
Mott also went on to say that the players are veery much disappointed after their loss to Sri Lanka as they hoped to turn things around in the World Cup with this encounter. England never played a settled XI in their five matches and made a lot of changes to their combination in almost every game including the one against Sri Lanka. But Mott defended the strategy stating that they picked the best players depending on the condtions on offer.
"It's going to be a very sombre dressing room tonight. We came here full of hope and hoping to turn things around and we were well off the mark and it's going to be a real test of character to get through the next few weeks and make sure that we can salvage something out of this campaign. We always reserve the right to pick players for different conditions. We admitted last time we probably got the balance wrong and so therefore we went back to the same balance that we've had before and look, when you when you lose by that margin, I don't think it's about a couple of small selections here and there," Mott further said.
