Eoin Morgan believes England’s chances of reaching the semi-finals of this summer’s Cricket World Cup are ‘still strong’, despite succumbing to a third loss of the tournament.
England suffered a 64-run defeat against Australia at Lord’s on Tuesday, to go with earlier losses against Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and remain fourth in the group standings on eight points, with only the top four teams progressing to the semi-finals.
Australia’s win made them the first team to officially qualify, and with India and New Zealand well-placed to join them, England are now locked in a battle with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Pakistan over the final spot.
With arguably their two most difficult games still to come, against the tournament’s two unbeaten sides, India and New Zealand, progress is far from guaranteed, but when asked how he rated England’s chance of progression Morgan said: “Still strong.
“The chances are in our hands,” he said. “Everything is within our control. We just need to produce a performance worthy of winning either one or the next two games.”
As it had been against Sri Lanka, it was England’s supposed strong suit, their batting, that let them down as Ben Stokes, who struck an excellent 89, was the only man to pass 30 in a failed pursuit of 286.
Afterwards, the England skipper admitted his side were struggling to execute in the area that has been the foundation for his side’s rise to the top of the ICC’s world rankings.
“I think both this game and the last, we struggled with the basics of what we call our batting mantra,” Morgan said. “You know, strong intent, building partnerships, and doing it in our own way, and we haven't done those for long enough periods of the game in order to either chase down 230 or chase down 280, and that's disappointing.
“I think our basics get challenged a lot more when we don't play on batter-friendly wickets; when you probably have to rotate the strike a lot more, as opposed to find the boundary more often than not.”
