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After a shocking 69-run loss to Afghanistan in Delhi,
England left for Mumbai on Monday still in shock. They now have to defeat South
Africa on Saturday night in addition to putting on a display that will inspire
their discouraged team.
The captain of England, Jos Buttler, spoke to his team
in the locker room on Sunday night in Delhi after handling the media. After
Afghanistan sealed their victory, it took them more than an hour to leave the
site while the travelling party wanted to settle the score.
They took a flight to the southwest on Monday in the
afternoon, and they will rest for two days in Mumbai before rehearsing for the
match on Saturday at the Wankhede Stadium. Their rivals, South Africa, will
arrive in the city after their match against the Netherlands in Dharamsala on
Wednesday, giving them a shorter lead-in time.
Due to their losses against Afghanistan and New
Zealand, England will likely need to win five of their final six league games
in order to advance to the semifinals. But while scoring two more points
against South Africa will be the main goal, they also need to recapture the
brave offensive strategy that was the foundation of their success in the
2015–19 cycle.
“With the bat and ball, I don’t think we were
probably aggressive enough, or took the positive option,” Adil Rashid said
after their defeat on Sunday.
“That’s cricket, that happens. Not every time you
go out are you going to smash sixes and fours… We’re not too concerned: it’s
just a game that we lost.” Asked if England had lost their aura over the
last four years, Rashid said: “I don’t think that’s fair. I think that’s
pretty unfair.”
Before
addressing his players, Buttler said that they could draw on similar
experiences. “Everyone will be disappointed in the dressing room and let
that sink in,” he said.
“But there’s a lot of guys who have been through
lots in their careers in there as well, and guys who have come back from tough
situations and shown a lot of character and resilience. It’s a very tight-knit
group, so we’ll get around each other and pick each other up, and down
ourselves down and go again.
“We’ve played some good cricket in all scenarios,
whether we’ve been on top and front-runners and fancied, or whether we’ve had
our backs against the wall. It’s a position you find yourselves in. It’s not
the position you wanted to be in three games ago, but the character is
excellent. There’ll always be belief.”
Buttler would not be drawn on the prospect of sweeping
changes for Saturday’s fixture – “it’s too early to say,” he said –
but it seems increasingly likely that Ben Stokes will be available after
recovering sufficiently from a left hip injury. “He wasn’t fit for this
game, but we’ll see how he pulls up for the next one,” Buttler said.
“He was close.”