England narrowly avoided a disaster in their final T20 World Cup group match against Italy on Monday.
Harry Brook won the toss and controversially decided to bat first at Eden Gardens in Kolkata.
England were 105/5 after a shaky opening 13 overs before Will Jacks rescued the innings with an unbeaten 53 from 22 balls.
Italy then battled back from 22/3 to 135/4 in their run chase, making the England players and fans nervous.
However, the Italians ultimately collapsed to 178 all out, and the Three Lions qualified for the Super 8s.
Brook made an interesting comment about England’s performance in his post-match interview, which many will disagree with.
Harry Brook praises England’s bowling unit
Harry Brook has every reason to be pleased with his team’s progression into the last eight of the competition.
However, it would be foolish to suggest that England’s performance against Italy was anything to be proud of.
Italy are the 26th-ranked team in the ICC T20I Team Rankings, so it should never have been a close contest.
That is why it was so surprising to hear Brook’s claim that England bowled well on Monday.
“I thought we fielded excellently, and we bowled nicely as well,” he said. “I never had a doubt at the end with Sam [Curran] and Jamie [Overton]. Sam has been awesome, and he has been throughout this comp so far.
“When Jof is on a heater, you want to get as much out of as possible – he did that today in his first couple of overs.”
Without question, England will need to bowl much better in the next stage of the tournament if they want to make the semi-finals.
Harry Brook expects more from England’s batting unit
While Brook praised England’s bowlers, he did recognise that their batting unit must improve quickly.
“We haven’t played our best cricket,” he added. “At the end of the day, we have made it through, and we’re heading to Sri Lanka, so we can be happy about that.
“A little bit of a trend in this competition. We have not managed to string along the score as we like to do as a batting unit. We have got to keep on being brave and taking our options.”
202 would normally be an excellent T20 score, but England would have hoped for at least 220 against cricket minnows Italy.
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