England have a lot of work to do to qualify for the knock-out stages of the ICC Cricket World Cup after a heavy defeat against New Zealand in Wellington.
Following on from the loss against Australia, a much-improved performance was expected against the Black Caps but it just didn’t materialise as Eoin Morgan’s men were bowled out for only 123, their third lowest total in World Cup history.
Understandably, Morgan was a little downbeat after the match.
“There’s no positives to take from today, which is probably the most disappointing thing,” he said.
“Moving forward we’ll have to concentrate on doing our basics as well as we can in order to try and gain momentum and get a win considering that we’ve lost our first two games now.”
The England captain acknowledged that his side’s schedule had been particularly tough at the start of the tournament.
“We said they were going to be two difficult games to start our World Cup campaign, playing against the two tournament favourites in home conditions but certainly I expected a bit more from us. Today we were completely outperformed.
“A lot of credit has to go to New Zealand. They bowled fantastically well and used conditions in their favour and outperformed us.
“The basics of our plans and our thinking are there. It’s just a matter of executing them or having a good enough skill level to execute them.
“When we first looked at the itinerary, yes, it was a difficult start but we certainly didn’t imagine it would be as big a defeat as this.
“We’ve always said that these two games can’t win or lose us the World Cup. Our first goal is to get to the quarter finals and we can still do that.”
In contrast, things couldn’t have gone much better for his opposite number. Brendon McCullum has led his side to three wins out of three in the tournament record and broke his own record for the fastest fifty in World Cup cricket.
His half century in only 18 balls bettered the 20-ball effort he posted against Canada in 2007.
Typically, McCullum wanted to heap the praise on his bowlers and give thanks to the supporters.
“The guys really enjoyed being able to play in front of such a big crowd and in the end it was a pretty emphatic performance,” he said.
“Tim Southee and Trent Boult, when they bowl like that they’re pretty hard to play against. They’re world class performers and we’ve got some guys on the sideline as well who have performed really strongly for us over a period of time, so we’re really lucky we’ve got that sort of clientele within the group.
“And we’ve got some handy batters too and I’m sure over the rest of the tournament we’ll see those guys step up.
“It really was a great performance today and we’ve had a huge first week in the tournament. Now we’ve got a bit of time off, we can re-group and then see everyone in Auckland against Australia.”
That clash, on February 28th, may decide the winners of Pool A. England, who face Scotland on Monday, in Christchurch, will now just be happy just to finish in the top four and reach the knock-out stages.
Trent Bridge hosts the fourth Royal London One-Day International between England and New Zealand on Wednesday 17 June. Don't miss the chance to watch England seek redemption against the Kiwis and secure your seat now.