Former India coach Ravi Shastri has taken a brutal dig at defending champions England after their extremely poor performance in the recent ICC World Cup 2023 match against India on Sunday in Lucknow.
England, chasing a 230-run target, folded for a paltry 129 runs and lost the match by 100 runs. Mohammad Shami and Jasprit Bumrah shared 7 wickets in between them. Earlier, Rohit Sharma’s 87 and Suryakumar Yadav’s 49 helped India put on 229/9 in 50 overs after they were asked to bat first by Jos Buttler, who won the toss.
Nasser Hussain and Michael Atherton reiterated their belief that Jos Buttler and his team are mentally exhausted, while former World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan believes the team's spirit and atmosphere have suffered as a result of the spate of defeats.
But Ravi Shastri went one level up and challenged their status as the defending ICC Cricket World Cup champions.
Barring a win against Bangladesh, all five of England's defeats are heavily one-sided. They lost to New Zealand by 9 wickets, Afghanistan stunned them by 69 runs, South Africa annihilated them by 229 runs and Sri Lanka outplayed them by eight wickets.
The former India coach believes England should take accountability of this performance and be gutted about the same.
“England should be devastated – spectators, supporters. Because the first match which they lost, 17 overs were left in the game when New Zealand beat them. Against South Africa, they got all out in 20 overs. That game ended early. Then they were all out in 30 overs against Sri Lanka, where SL chased the target and finished the match in 25 overs. Today, they had lost 8 wickets inside 32 overs. You call yourselves World Champions? It means, if they aren't sad over their performance, who will?" Shastri said on commentary on Star Sports.
"If someone asks what is the difference between India and England, it is of 8 teams,” he brutally roasted England.
England are now at the 10th spot in CWC 2023 points table even below Bangladesh with an abysmal net run rate of -1.652. They have games left against Australia, the Netherlands and Pakistan and England would want to win these for two primary reasons- pride and Champions Trophy qualification.
If England do not finish in the top 8 in the points table of this ODI World Cup, they will miss out on playing in the ICC Champions Trophy in 2025 in Pakistan.
"From here on, England will have to play for pride. The reason I am saying that is because right now they are at the bottom of the points table. And in the Champions Trophy which takes place in 2025, only the top 8 teams of the World Cup can qualify. So, if England remain in the bottom two, imagine a team like them not playing an ICC tournament as big as the CT would be a huge blow," added Shastri.
England will next clash with a rampaging Australia on November 4 in Ahmedabad.
