Matthew Mott has denied there is disharmony in the England squad after his former captain, Eoin Morgan, said their performances at the World Cup had “called into question the morale within the changing room” and showed “there’s something within the team that is definitely unsettled”.
England remain rooted to the bottom of the 10-team table after losing against India in Lucknow, where after restricting their opponents to 229 they were bowled out for just 129. But Mott insisted that despite their miserable run of five defeats in six games his squad remained united.
“Eoin’s entitled to his opinion,” the head coach said. “He hasn’t been in and around the rooms, but I’ll certainly take that up with him and have a chat to him. I don’t think anyone that’s inside our tent at the moment would say that, despite our results. We’re an incredibly tightknit unit. Dave Humphreys [the former Ireland rugby union international who has been working as the England and Wales Cricket Board’s director of cricket] was flabbergasted just how tight the unit was when he came in to observe us, given the results that we’ve had.
“There’s every opportunity when you’re losing to splinter and go your separate ways. I can only say from my opinion the group’s been incredibly strong in that part. If you see our training sessions, they’re full of fun. People are putting their arms around each other, trying to help them. It’s easy to do that when you’re winning, it’s a lot harder when you’re losing. I’m proud that we keep trying to get up.”
Chris Woakes admitted the team were massively short on self-belief, saying “if we could buy some confidence at the minute we’d spend a lot of money on it”. But Mott believes that for all the recent misery the team will be stronger for the experience.
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“It’s an incredibly difficult period. I think we won’t forget this one for a long time,” he said. “But you’ve got to learn when you hit the canvas and you keep getting kicked when you’re down, you store that away and you use that as motivation to keep getting better and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Though England again failed with the bat Mott said their performance in the field had provided some encouragement. “The way that we fielded and bowled today showed the commitment of the group. I thought we were brilliant there. The first half we did our job, the second half was one we’d rather forget.”
