NEWS
Follow UsEngland's white-ball coach Matthew Mott said the team remains an "incredibly tight-knit unit" despite a 100-run thrashing by India in Lucknow on Sunday (October 29) which condemned the defending champions to a fifth defeat at the World Cup. His comments came after former England captain Eoin Morgan insisted that there were splits in the camp which were causing the champions to under-perform.
"No, not really. I don't think that at all. I think anyone that's inside our tent at the moment would say that despite our results, we're an incredibly tight-knit unit, to the point where one of our, I said to the boys the other day, Dave Humphries, who's a former rugby international, was flabbergasted just how tight the unit was when he came in for a week to observe us, given that the results that we've had,” said Mott.
“So, there's every opportunity when you're losing - to splinter and go 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.
“Eoin’s entitled to his opinion. He's obviously been away for a couple of weeks with the birth of his child. He hasn't been in and around the rooms, but I'll certainly take that up with him and have a chat with him. We've got a really good relationship with him. So, if he's seeing something that I'm not, I'll definitely have that conversation.”
Jos Buttler's England suffered their fourth straight defeat and are now out of the semi-final race. Their bowlers kept India down to 229-9, but the batting once again collapsed to 129 all out against an Indian attack led by Mohammed Shami, Jasprit Bumrah and Kuldeep Yadav. England's batting folded for 156 in their previous loss to Sri Lanka, but Mott said the team will not throw in the towel in their next three matches.
"I think it's tough. I'm sick of coming up and speaking to you guys about the same thing, but that's what professional sport is. And we've got to keep pushing hard here. We've got a fair bit to play for to the back end of this tournament.
"I think the way that we went out and fielded and bowled today showed the commitment of the group. And that's the main part of this. You've got to keep fronting up and commit, throw yourself around in the field. I thought we were brilliant there. And the first half we did our job the second half was one would rather forget and we've got to find a way.
"There's some world-class players in there that unfortunately aren't scoring the runs that they're used to scoring. We went out to bat with a lot of positivity about it being a very achievable total. There was a lot of dew out there as well. I thought, particularly after the start, we got none for 30 that we're well placed but anytime you lose four for 10 you put yourself under pressure and it unravelled again from there unfortunately."
Talking about Buttler’s captaincy, Mott said: “I think he's been great, to be honest. I think Jos is an incredibly deep thinker about the game. First and foremost, I think he's just disappointed with his own form of the bat. I think he felt like he came over here in really good form. He usually leads from the front and scores a lot of runs. I think that's probably been the hardest thing to deal with.
“That dressing room's full of really good characters and guys with a lot of experience, and they've really helped a lot. I think Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Johnny Bairstow, Joe Root, guys like that have played around him a lot, have really tried to take the pressure off him. But like all of us, it's an incredibly difficult period.
“I think we won't forget this one for a long time. But what you do in elite sport is you've got to learn when you hit the canvas and you keep getting kicked while you're down, you store that away and you make sure you use that as motivation to keep getting better and making sure it doesn’t happen again and Jos is certainly in that boat.”
England are languishing at the bottom of the 10-team table with a chance of missing out on the 2025 Champions Trophy, where the top seven teams from this World Cup and hosts Pakistan are expected to compete. However, Mott said they got to know about the qualification scenario only "about an hour and a half ago".
“The ICC do change the rules quite a bit with qualification and to be honest I don't think it would affect in any way the way we've played in this tournament so it's not a big deal,” said Mott.
“We've got to turn up and play and win those games. And we're obviously up against some good teams in those last few games as well. So, that's plenty of motivation for us to pick ourselves back up off the canvas and keep trying to throw punches.”
(With inputs from AFP)
