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Northern Voice: Defending champions England gave Oman a cricketing lesson in the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium in Antigua on Thursday afternoon.
England not only had to win but also had to focus on a healthy Net Result Rate (NRR) as Scotland were ahead in both points and NRR. The defending champions gave their best performance in the tournament, defeating Oman who were playing against the giants for the first time.
England had one of the fastest fast attackers in the team with the trio of Reece Topley, Jofra Archer and Mark Wood and if that was not enough, Adil Rashid wove a magical web of spin to get Oman all out for 47, their lowest score in a World Cup and T20I match in history. England will be looking to improve their NRR and complete the chase in 3.1 overs. Oman captain Ilyas had little defence to deal with such a dismal performance and called it a “total collapse”.
“We didn’t do well with our batting and it was a huge failure. We got a lot of exposure. Overall, we couldn’t do much. Our batsmen haven’t done well throughout the tournament. In today’s game, we were bowled out for only 47 runs and didn’t stand any chance,” Ilyas said in the post-match press conference.
However, Ilyas said his team had “a lot of positives to take away” and hoped that this experience of playing in stadiums and against world-class Test-playing nations would only help “the team get better and better”.
“When you play against top bowlers who bowl at 140-145 kmph once or more every year, league batsmen take a lot of things into account. We need to learn how these top professional teams make plans and execute on the field,” he added.
Talking about the batting performance today, Ilyas said, “The pitch was good for batting but our batsmen played too recklessly. They were under more pressure playing against the big teams. Many of them had poor batting selections. We should have been more tactical against the opening bowlers and bowled them out. We suffered more due to our batting errors. Our bowlers performed very well and it was a big win for us.”
Elias added: “We can learn a lot from top players, about how things work and how to get better. When you come up against top players like that, you learn a lot and know where you stand. If you want to make an impact, you have to put in a lot of work.”
“Hats off to them (England), they put pressure on the bowlers. They have to score more. We have learnt a lot and know how we can do better. We were competitive in some areas. But it is not enough at this level,” the all-rounder said.
Oman scored just 47 runs, the fourth lowest score by a team in a T20 World Cup match, and England’s best bowling performance in the tournament. After England successfully chased the ball with 101 balls remaining, they set a new World Cup record.
England captain Jos Buttler said: “I think the tone of the game was set by the bowlers. The early wickets helped us restrict them. Our job was done today but we have another game in two days (against Namibia). We bowled very well. We have another important game to play. We can only control our performance and all the focus is on that.”
England’s top bowler Adil Rashid, who took figures of 4/11, said: “Our main aim was to win but once we kept their score below 50, we knew we could play positive cricket and improve our NRR. It was great to get such a comprehensive win.”
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