AHMEDABAD: England boarded the flight to India for this World Cup, they were the second-favourites to win it. Over the last month or so, the wheels have come off the campaign in a fashion not many would have envisaged. While they have tried to address the issue, they haven't yet managed to pinpoint the reasons behind their poor showing.
Ben Stokes, a messianic figure, was blunt with his assessment. "I think the problem is that we have been crap," he said in the pre-match press conference a day ahead of the clash against Australia.
While they have chopped and changed, dropped players and gone away from plans, nothing has worked for them. "Every opportunity that we have had in front of us where we feel like we can take control of the game, the opposition has managed to get it back towards them," Stokes, one of the many established stars who has underperformed, said. "And we've just not been able to put a full game together, or even got close to putting a full game together except against Bangladesh."... because if we knew what had gone wrong, we would have been able to fix it. But unfortunately, we don't. It's just been one of those tournaments where, yeah, it's just been a disaster. And there's no point sugarcoating it because it's probably what you're all going to write anyway, and it's true." Stokes to have surgery post WC
In what could have ramifications for England's Test series in January and February, Stokes, the captain in the longest format, said he would undergo a procedure once the World Cup is over. "I am having surgery after the World Cup," he said. While he is expected to make a full recovery before that Test series (it begins in Hyderabad in the last week of January), picking a player needing a surgery on a troublesome knee is just one among many avoidable calls they took.
