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LUCKNOW: England captain Jos Buttler has pretty much accepted their 50-overs World Cup title defence is over but wants the team to give their best in the remaining group matches to make the cut for the 2025 Champions Trophy in Pakistan.
The 2019 champions stay rooted to the bottom of the 10-team table after succumbing to their fifth defeat in six matches against hosts India on Sunday.
England restricted the tournament hosts to a modest 229-9 but imploded in their chase and were all out for 129 inside 35 overs in yet another batting capitulation.
“Very disappointing,” Butter said after the 100-run thrashing left them with only mathematical chances of making the last four. “At the halfway stage chasing 230, we fancied ourselves. But it’s the same old story.”
England face Australia, the Netherlands and Pakistan in their remaining matches and only a top-eight finish would guarantee them a place in the Champions Trophy in Pakistan.
“Yeah, we are aware of that and absolutely, we’ve still got lots to play for,” Buttler said.
The stumper-batsman was pleased with their bowling and fielding and lamented how poor batting let them down again.
“We were excellent in the field. We made a great start in the powerplay. Players found some movement, bit of indifferent bounce and the ground fielding has been as good as it’s been. So it felt like today was the day it turned around. But the way we batted didn’t back that up.”
Asked to explain England’s underwhelming performance in the tournament, Buttler said, “Answers on a postcard. There’s some top players in there and we were a long way short of their best.”
England coach Matthew Mott, meanwhile, said that the team remained an “incredibly tight-knit unit”, his claims coming after former England captain Eoin Morgan insisted that there were splits in the camp which were causing the champions to under-perform.
“I don’t think that at all. I think anyone that’s inside our tent at the moment would say that despite our results, we’re an incredibly tight-knit unit,” Mott said. “I can only say from my opinion the group’s been incredibly strong in that part. If you see our training sessions, they’re full of fun. People are putting their arm around each other, trying to help them.”
Mott added that England got to know about the Champions Trophy qualification scenario only “about an hour and a half ago”
“Well, the ICC do change the rules quite a bit with qualification and to be honest I don’t think it would affect in any way the way we’ve played in this tournament so it’s not a big deal,” said Mott.