BANGALORE: Defending champions England are on the verge of early exit after their 8-wicket defeat against Sri Lanka here on Thursday.
This was England’s fourth defeat in five games and looks likely to be tough for them to finish at the top four of the round-robin league.
England all out for 156 in 33.2 overs while the 1996 champions chased 157 target in 25.4 overs. Sri Lanka won the second game to stay in play-off contention.
“Yeah, it’s over now, I think. I’m not mathematician, but with our net rate and too many teams who are going to take games off each other, we have to come to terms with that from now we’re playing for a lot of pride,” said England white-ball coach Matthew Mott.
“We’ve got a lot to do there, we feel like we’ve let our fans down, our families and supporters and everyone in that dressing room, we haven’t put our best foot forward and in professional sport that’s what you’re judged on.”
‘A shock to perform as we have’
“In any sport, you can’t protect anything, you have to go and create something new. We’ve touched on experience and having banked stuff before but something we spoke about a lot as a team is that you have to go and create it again,” said England captain Jos Buttler.
“You can’t rest of your laurels or just to protect an image or protect something as a team. That’s why at the very beginning of the tournament, I said we weren’t here to defend our title, we were here to start something new and win something. Obviously, we’re falling a long way short of that at the moment but, as players, we didn’t take anything for granted or just think it’ll be alright on the night. You don’t get to the level like this by thinking like that.”
