Image Credit- Getty
Despite early losses to Afghanistan and New Zealand,
England has not suddenly turned into a bad team, and despite this, their
players are still optimistic that they can win the World Cup. Jonny Bairstow
delivered that message on Wednesday and defended the team’s focus in response
to criticism.
England has two points after their first three games,
so to advance past the group stage, they will likely need to win five of their
last six games. On Saturday night, they play South Africa at the Wankhede
Stadium, giving them an opportunity to bounce back from a shocking loss to
Afghanistan by 69 runs in Delhi.
And Bairstow said the squad retains belief that they
can put a run of victories together. “There’s a reason why the guys won
the T20 World Cup last year; there’s a reason why the guys won the 2019 World
Cup, and we’re the defending champions,” he said. “Just because we’ve
lost a game to Afghanistan doesn’t make us bad cricketers or anything like
that.
“You look at [Fazalhaq] Farooqi, his record in
the IPL; you look at the three spinners that they’ve got and their records.
Just because they play for Afghanistan, they’re no slouches. They’ve actually
got some of the world’s best in there and they’ve got match-winners. We lost
that game, we didn’t play well enough, and we’ve accepted that and moved on
from that.”
Asked whether England’s batting line-up is still
capable of dominating opposing teams in the way they have over the last eight
years, Bairstow said: “I don’t really think much has really changed, has
it? You look at the strength in depth that we have with our batting line-up… I
don’t think the firepower can be questioned.
“We’re just focusing on ourselves. That’s what we
do. We’ll go out and play the way that we’re looking to play, put pressure on
the opposition like we said that we’d try and do. People are allowed to bowl or
bat well. But if our mindset is right and if the way in which we approach the
game is right, then that’s the bit that we can control.”