England were being touted as one of the favourites to claim the 2023 World Cup title before the marquee tournament got underway but almost two weeks into the event, the Jos Buttler-led side is struggling to maintain a winning momentum.
After suffering a crushing defeat at the hands of New Zealand in their campaign opener, the Three Lions hammered Bangladesh by 137 runs to claim their first win of the edition but just when it looked like their campaign was heading in the right direction they stumbled and fell victim to an upset.
Playing at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi against Afghanistan, the defending champions suffered a huge setback as the Hasmatullah Shahidi-led side produced a brilliant performance to win the game by 69 runs. Having lost two games already, England are now in dire straits and will have to win their upcoming games to stay in contention for a place in the semifinals.
It seems that not everything is going right at the moment and former India cricketer and chief selector of the All India Men's Selection Committee, Chetan Sharma believes that they are not going in with the right combination and the absence of Ben Stokes is hurting them badly.
"Ben Stokes' unavailability is spoiling their combination. They need someone experienced like Stokes in their middle order. They are struggling with their bowling. Nobody expected Afghanistan to cause such a huge upset, England themselves wouldn't have expected something of that sort but now they need to pull themselves up.
They should have played Moeen Ali at any cost. You can't keep him out of the playing XI," told Sharma.
"Once Stokes regains his fitness, he should replace Liam Livingstone and England should draft Moeen Ali into the playing XI at the expense of Sam Curran," he added.
England will be up against South Africa in their next match at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday, October 21.
