Jos Buttler, the captain of England, acknowledged that
his team was “a long way short of our best” after the defending ODI
World Cup champions lost to New Zealand by a dispiriting nine wickets on the
opening night of the competition in Ahmedabad.
When England was given the opportunity to bat first,
they stumbled along to a total of 282 for 9, losing wickets at frequent
intervals. Buttler afterwards stated that he believed England to be 50 below
par with the bat. Despite Sam Curran’s wicket in the first ball of the second
over, England’s bowling performance was ineffective as New Zealand easily won
with 13.4 overs remaining thanks to a record-breaking 273-run partnership
between Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra.
The setback left England with a net run rate hit of
-2.149, which may still have a big impact on their prospects of moving on. On
Tuesday, England will play Bangladesh in Dharamsala in their second group
encounter.
“A disappointing day, very much outplayed by New
Zealand and a tough defeat to take,” Buttler said at the post-match
presentation. “It is one loss, whether we lost by a run or the margin we
did today, it’s one loss at the start of a long tournament.
“There’s a lot of guys in our team, who’ve played
a lot of cricket. We’ve beaten teams this way before and been on the end of
these results before as well. We won’t read too much into it, won’t get to down
on ourselves as much as we wouldn’t get too high if we were on the other
side.”
Although Buttler suggested the pitch had got better
for batting under the floodlights, he said that England had not been clinical
enough with their shot execution.
“I thought we were well below par,” he said.
“Judging by the way New Zealand batted, they showed that. I thought we
were aiming for 330, it felt like it was a really good wicket to bat on and it
probably got even better under lights as well. Just with the score we had and
the start they got off to, it’s tough to build any pressure. You can’t be too
defensive. I think we were just not quite clinical enough with our shot-making
and our execution.”
Root emphasised that despite their lopsided defeat in
the 2019 final rematch, England would not be panicked and that they would
instead “reaffirm” their conviction in attacking cricket by using the
batting innings.
“It was a frustrating day but it’s really
important to remember, there’s so much cricket in this tournament and it’s
really important we don’t panic,” he said. “If anything we just
reaffirm what we’re about as a team and make sure we almost go more that way in
the next game.”