Image Credit- ICC
At the southern end of the Wankhede Stadium, Jos
Buttler sat alone in a row of chairs above the sightscreen outside of the
dressing room for England. While his team is mathematically still in this World
Cup, he had the thousand-yard glare of a guy who knew there was no turning
back.
While Buttler was thinking back on what had happened,
Mark Wood and Gus Atkinson took a swing and smashed 70 runs off just 5.3 overs.
Even yet, on a night they had targeted as the game that would turn their World
Cup around, England suffered their biggest-ever loss in men’s ODIs, leaving
them to suffer the shame.
This was their third setback in four losses in this
tournament, and each one has hurt. They were defeated by Afghanistan in Delhi
and by New Zealand in Ahmedabad, but this was a complete collapse in Mumbai.
South Africa not only defeated England’s world champions; they also gave them
the appearance of being a broken squad.
It reminded me of the evening that England’s title
defence collapsed. They put their faith in the core group of players who drove
the white-ball revolution and helped them go from underdogs to two-time world
champions, but they haven’t delivered as a group.
In a brief period near the end of South Africa’s
innings, England showed a momentary feeling of control. South Africa had 264
for 5 after 41 overs and hadn’t struck a boundary in 29 balls; their number 7
player, Marco Jansen, had 11 off 19 balls. Buttler thought, “We could have
looked like limiting them to 340 or 350.”
Rather, they accomplished 399. England were just worn
out, not because they were unfit. “It certainly looked a bit like a
warzone there at times,” Mott stated. Buttler’s decision to bowl first
after winning the toss was the cause of the issue. He gave this explanation:
“[This is] generally a good ground for chasing, so that’s the reason
behind it.”
The reasoning, however, depended more on the past than
it did on the present and the future, just like so many other decisions England
has made at this World Cup. At 2pm, when Mumbai’s heat and humidity were at
their worst, England stumbled onto the pitch. 11 Englishmen cooked to crispness
in a pan for four hours was a surefire prescription for disaster.
England is no longer a chasing team, if they ever were
one. This was their seventh defeat in their previous eight successful ODI
run-chases; the only target they had managed to reach was 210 in Mirpur on a
turning pitch. The pressure of the scoreboard used to amuse England; now, it
hinders them.
Teams are likely to need six wins out of nine in the
group stage to reach the semi-finals: England will need five in a row to reach
that point, and do not look like they know where even one is coming from.
“We’ll keep the belief,” Buttler insisted, but few outside of their
dressing-room will join them – and those doubts must be seeping inside it.