ICC Cricket World Cup 2023: Michael Atherton Bemoans England's 'Disastrous Defence of Title'

England’s ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 campaign is all but over as their title defence fell flat even before most could say ‘Bazball’.

Having lost five of their matches so far, Jos Buttler’s England have only a mathematical chance of making the semi-finals and a loss to their Ashes rivals Australia will end their title defence. Australia, meanwhile, sit third and are in ominous form after four consecutive wins.

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Former captain Michael Atherton, on the latest episode of The ICC Review podcast, called England’s title defence as, “It has been a disastrous defence of the title.”.

“I think most people could accept a team that played pretty decent cricket and just came up short. That happens in sport.

“There is no divine right to win every game, no divine right to win these competitions, and England have been very good for a long time

“But it’s the way England have just been hammered. If you look at the defeats, five of them have been by unbelievable margins.

“I don’t think anybody saw that coming, and it is very difficult to understand.”

England’s campaign has barely got going after being thumped in the tournament opener – a rematch of the epic 2019 final against New Zealand – by nine wickets. The convincing 137-run win over Bangladesh that followed put England back on track, but four straight defeats since then mean they have one win from six matches.

“The end result is England have not done very well, and therefore you’ll find reasons to fit the performance,” Atherton said.

“So whether it’s the toss, whether it’s the selection, whether it’s the central contracts that were announced, who knows?”

“You could probably say it’s a combination of all those things, little things that have added up and eventually have meant that this team is a long way short of where it should be.”

England’s biggest-ever defeat in terms of runs in an ODI came against South Africa when they never looked like reaching the target of 400 and soon collapsed to fall 229 runs short.

That result was one of several crushing losses that have left England with the worst net run rate at the tournament and in bottom place on the standings with three matches to play.

“The obvious mistakes, the biggest I thought was the toss at Mumbai when Jos (Buttler) put South Africa in to bat on a roasting hot day, a must-win game,” Atherton said.

“But I thought that was, in terms of the captain’s role, that was the biggest mistake.

“You can then look at other things like selection, but I had sympathy for making one or two changes because they were going so poorly before that.”