MUMBAI: Soon after England suffered an annihilating 229-run defeat at the hands of a rampaging South Africa at the Wankhede Stadium on Saturday night - the defending champions’ third loss in their first four games in the 2023 ODI World Cup - England captain Jos Buttler had no qualms in admitting that an embarrassingly early exit looms large for the 2019 world champions.
England are now ninth in the table, just above Afghanistan, with just two points after four games. Asked if qualifying for the semifinals looks difficult from here for England, Buttler said: “Yeah, it's going to be incredibly difficult. We haven't left ourselves any margin from this point on. But we'll keep the belief.”
“It (the massive rout tonight) certainly leaves us in a tough position. There's no room for error from here on in. That's (qualifying for the semis) going to be incredibly tough, but we'll sit down and go again. That's all you can do in this situation,” the England captain stated.
Describing his emotions after a rather painful whipping for his boys coming on the back of a shocking loss to Afghanistan in Delhi, Buttler said: “Disappointment. A really tough defeat to take. Obviously, we were disappointed in Delhi and had a good few days and worked really hard and did a lot of things hoping to put it right today but it didn't work out.”
Buttler admitted that considering how England’s players struggled with cramps in the typically oppressive humid conditions in October while fielding in the afternoon, he would’ve been better off asking South Africa to field first after winning the toss.
“I think you always reflect after games and sort of question your decisions. Certainly, with hindsight, the sort of physicality of that innings, potentially batting first would have been a better decision, but I'm not going to sort of sit here and question that and in that sense and sort of say, you should have done this or you should have done that. It's a decision I took at the time. I thought it was the right one and I still believe if we were chasing 340, 350, we would have done really well in those conditions,” he reflected.
Buttler pointed out that Heinrich Klaasen (109) and Marco Jansen’s (75*) magnificent 77-ball 151-run sixth wicket stand was the “main bit of the game.” “Getting up to 400 was an excellent score. It sort of took the wind away from us and it was always going to be tough from there,” he said.
