BANGALORE – England must raise their game by several notches if they are to stay alive in the World Cup and Andrew Strauss admitted that unless they stopped “chasing their tails”, their journey could come to a premature end. England’s World Cup hopes are hanging by a thread after Ireland pulled off the biggest upset in the tournament by defeated them by three-wickets on Wednesday to blow Group B wide-open. Having narrowly beaten the Netherlands, England’s remaining matches are against West Indies, Bangladesh and South Africa and skipper Strauss admitted that there is no margin for error if they are to go through to the next round.
“The game coming up against South Africa (on Sunday) is a huge one for us,” he said. “Generally we bounce back well from defeat in the past whether it’s in test cricket or one-day cricket and we are going to have to do that very quickly and probably be very honest with each other and realise where we can improve and make those improvements very quickly.” One area of improvement would definitely be their bowling attack which have now conceded three of their highest four World Cup totals in their matches this tournament.
Swann urges England to hold nerve: Graeme Swann insisted England still believed they could win a first World Cup title despite their stunning three-wicket defeat by Ireland. Kevin O’Brien struck the fastest-ever World Cup century, off just 50 balls, as the associate nation recovered from 111 for five to make 329 for seven — the highest winning World Cup score by a team batting second. It was the second extraordinary match England had found themselves involved in at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in a matter of days after their dramatic tie with India.
Swann insisted the World Twenty20 champions and Ashes-holders could recover from Wednesday’s loss. “Four or five days ago the whole world was saying ‘Oh my God, England can win this’ because we didn’t get destroyed by that invincible Indian team,” Swann said. “We know the fickle nature of the world and we’re going to ignore that and just carry on and play the best cricket we can. “If we start panicking and thinking we’re the disgrace half the people on Twitter thought we were last (Wednesday) night, there’s no point in us playing,” said Swann.
