England’s ODI World Cup defence went from bad to worse after they suffered their fourth loss and third on the trot, this time to Sri Lanka by eight wickets at Bengaluru’s M. Chinnaswamy Stadium on Thursday.
A despondent Jos Buttler fronted up to the media, following his side’s defeat and when asked about whether England’s semi-final chances had faded away with that loss, the skipper felt that was indeed the case.
“It certainly looks that way (England are out of the tournament) and that’s incredibly disappointing. You get on the plane to come to India and we’re in a really good position as a team. Everything looking like it’s going to plan and it’s just not worked at all,” Buttler said at the end of the game.
Jos Buttler admitted that England’s performance in the tournament so far had come as a shock for him and the rest of the squad.
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“We’re a really good team, done a lot of really good things in the recent past in white ball cricket, 50-over cricket. As I said – get on the plane with high hopes and a lot of confidence and belief that we can challenge for the title. So, to be sitting here now with the three weeks that I’ve been is a shock. It’s a shock to everyone,” he said.
When asked if the scheduling of matches had played a role in England not being able to perform as well as they were expected to in the tournament, the wicket-keeper batter refused to put the blame on anyone else but the team.
“No, as players, the schedules are the schedules, and we’ve got a lot of things in our favour. We’ve got fantastic support from the coaches within the environment. We get fantastic support from our fans as a country, and we’ve let them all down.”
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“It’s been a really tough few weeks, incredibly disappointing, as you say, a shock to perform the way we have with the team that we do have. So, I don’t think there’s any blame elsewhere apart from ourselves,” Jos Buttler concluded.
England next take on India at Lucknow on Sunday.
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