What went wrong with favourites England?

Direct Hit

When the World Cup began, England were one of the big favourites after India to defend their title.

They had selected a strong team with Ben Stokes too coming out of retirement but have had a poor run in the tournament so far having lost four out of their five games with a negative run-rate and are as good as out of the World cup.

What has gone wrong with a team which were playing such aggressive cricket and fearless cricket? That's what the question every cricket fan might have. They lost their opening game to New Zealand by eight wickets even after scoring 282 and with almost 14 overs to spare. England came back in the second game thumping Bangladesh by 123 runs but had set back in Delhi against Afghanistan. They were beaten by Afghanistan where their batsmen failed to cope up with the spin trio Mujeeb-ur Rehman, Rashid Khan and Mohammed Nabi. But their biggest defeat came at the hands of South Africa where their bowlers ended up conceding 399. In reply, at one stage England were at 8-100 and finally bowled out for 170 losing by a whopping margin of 229 runs in Mumbai.

And when they clashed against Sri Lanka in Bangalore on Thursday, their batting again folded for just 156 in 33 overs and Sri Lanka cruised to victory in 25 overs almost knocking England out of the World Cup.

When asked at the post-match presentation, a disappointed Jos Butler said he included as well as the players have not shown good account of themselves in the tournament so far. He does not have a clear answer as why they have been so poor in the tournament, but he agreed the team is playing long way short of their best and was humble in admitting that it's the captain who leads from the front and he has let the team down badly by not scoring runs.

Butler added that you don’t become a bad player or a bad team overnight and that has been their biggest frustration. Buttler said it's not the selection but the performance and all the players on the field have been short of standards they have set; they have been making the kind of mistakes which is not seen often of an English team. He hopes they will still play for pride for the rest of the tournament and give an account of themselves.

England might still not be virtually out of the World Cup but the team which played such fearless cricket in the last eight years have been sadly disappointing and have left not only their fans down but themselves.