It hasn’t been an ideal start to England’s campaign in the T20 World Cup 2026. After nearly suffering an upset at the hands of Nepal in their opening encounter, they have lost to West Indies, and are in a position where they might have to win both their upcoming group games in order to qualify.
Harry Brook, the England captain, admitted that his team conceded 15-20 extra runs on the field – Adil Rashid dropped two catches of top-scorer Sherfane Rutherford – as a result of which England were left behind the eight ball against West Indies, eventually 30 runs short of the opposition’s total at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday.
“We didn’t quite execute well enough with the ball and they probably got 15, 20 too many,” Brook said following the loss. “We thought the 197-run target was chasable, definitely. We obviously planned for dew and it didn’t quite get as dewy as we thought, and it didn’t quite slide onto the bat as much as we were expecting.”
“I don’t think that there is an issue with playing spin. That series against Sri Lanka showed that. I thought we played spin really well out there. They bowled well; they kept themselves in the game the whole time. Like you said, we lost quite a few wickets in clusters, which never really helps.
“We were probably a little bit careful. Chasing nearly 200 is always a big ask and like I said we didn’t think – we thought the pitch would get a little bit better and it’d slide onto the bat a bit more and that didn’t happen.”
