With their World Cup campaign desperately needing momentum, defending champions England will take on Sri Lanka at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Thursday.
The Jos Buttler-led side have two points after four matches and are currently in ninth place on the points table. Anything but a win on Thursday could spell curtains for their semi-final qualification chances.
Speaking ahead of the match, all-rounder Moeen Ali said that every match was a must-win for the side and they needed to do well in all three departments of the game to beat Sri Lanka on Thursday.
“Everything is a must-win and we know we’ve been in this position before, probably not to this degree, but we know everything is a must-win and we have to get our confidence and perform well and bat and bowl and field better than we have done so far in this tournament,” Ali said on Wednesday.
ICC World Cup: Schedule | Results | Points Table | Most Runs | Most Wickets
The all-rounder may not have played after his side’s opening match against New Zealand but said that he had been speaking with the players and sharing his thoughts about the conditions on offer at different Indian grounds.
“Yeah, look as vice-captain you try and give as much input as you can especially when the captain asks your opinion on things and yeah, it’s talk about the team together a lot of the time I give my opinion and that’s all I can do really”.
“I just try and help out as much as I can but it’s really important that players – and Jos has played a lot here as well, so he knows a lot of the conditions, and he knows what happens in India. And yeah, he bounces a few ideas off me, and I do the same thing,” the all-rounder said.
England opted to retain almost the same core, that won the 2019 ODI World Cup, for the 2023 edition of the tournament and Ali felt that the ongoing tournament was not a swansong for the current group of players.
ALSO READ| Hardik Pandya Unlikely For India’s Next World Cup Match vs England in Lucknow
“I think there’s still a lot of players that can play for a long time. There’s obviously a few of us who are a bit older, more than likely won’t make the next World Cup, but there’s a lot of players who have been around for years that will be, and I don’t think it’s the end of anything. I think it could potentially be the start of something else,” he said.
Cricket at LA Olympics amazing- Ali
Cricket will feature at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics after a gap of more than 100 years and when asked about the decision to reintroduce the sport at the games, Ali felt that it would be an amazing feeling to play for your country at the quadrennial event.
“I think it’s amazing for the game. I think it’s amazing for everyone. It’d be amazing to play in the Olympics representing cricket and representing [your] country would be unbelievable in 2028. I’ll be quite old but I’ll try to hang on. But yeah, that’ll be unbelievable to play Olympics for your country,” he said.
Comments
0 comment