Photo Credit: ICC
Jos Buttler’s power hitting might have been the highlight of England’s thumping win over Australia but the balance of the bowling attack has been the most consistent element of their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup campaign so far.
Leading the way is Adil Rashid, second only to Chris Jordan for T20 international wickets for England, who even took the new ball in the win over the Aussies.
That was a statement victory, with England now three from three and within touching distance of the semi-finals, and while the team is not getting carried, Rashid explained that the bowling attack has been feeding off one another so far in this tournament ahead of Monday’s clash with Sri Lanka.
He said: “Whether we win by one run or win by 100 runs, we do the same thing with the same mindset. We come again. We don’t look too far ahead. We don’t think about winning the World Cup.
“That’s still a long way away. We’re not thinking about that. We’re thinking about the next game, which is Sri Lanka, and doing the job there. Then the next game there. We take it a game at a time, a day at a time. We don’t look too far ahead and say about the finals and stuff.
“Obviously we’ve got a lot of experience with seam and spin. So I think we’re all very together as one. We all feed off each other. Everybody has different experiences. Everybody has their own ideas that people want to know and feed off.
“But like I said, with our experience we have with bowling, everybody leads to that. Obviously myself and CJ, like I say, are the lead wicket-takers. But we’ve got Chris Woakes there, who is experienced with that.
“We have a very experienced bowling line-up where we help each other, as opposed to just me and CJ telling or just giving information out. It’s definitely about feeding off of each other because we look to hold each other up.”
Sri Lanka, meanwhile, have lost two in a row, with defeat to South Africa last time out a particularly painful loss.
David Miller’s heroics in the penultimate overturned a seemingly doomed chase into a dramatic victory, but spinner Maheesh Theekshana believes the team has a lot of growth in it, as one of the many youngsters in the squad, aged just 21.
He said: “It’s a very good journey for me in here because I never thought I would be in the 2021 World Cup. And I never had the experience to play for Sri Lanka. It’s a very good pressure. I don’t think it’s bad or something. But I’m still 21, we are a lot of young players in here.
“I think in the next two or three years there will be a lot more growth for us in Sri Lankan cricket.”
The England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) is the national governing body for cricket in England and Wales, formed on January 1, 1997. It combines roles from the Test and County Cricket Board, National Cricket Association, and Cricket Council, and integrated the Women’s Cricket Association in 1998. Based at Lord’s Cricket Ground, the ECB oversees all levels of cricket, including national teams for men, women, and various disability categories.
