Nasser Hussain feels one big loss won't affect England's World Cup plans
England were thumped by 219 in the fifth ODI runs against Sri Lanka.
They have won 14 of their last 17 full-fledged bilateral ODI series. England’s latest triumph came in an away series against Sri Lanka which they won 3-1. However, it was the Three Lions’ humiliating loss in the fifth game – a dead rubber – which earned them criticism. Though the former captain Nasser Hussain has refused to believe that this defeat would have any bearing on Eoin Morgan’s men in the run-up to the World Cup at home next year.
England took an unassailable 3-0 lead in four games after the first one was washed away by rain but were hammered in the final match in Colombo by 219 runs – their heaviest defeat batting second in the 50-over format. They were 132/9 after 26.1 overs after the hosts scored 366 for 6 in their allotted 50 overs when rain intervened. They were 219 runs behind the DLS par score at the time which meant the visitors lost by a whopping margin.
Just one of those days
Nasser Hussain conceded that the No.1 ODI side had a bad day in office but did not think it would have a long impact. “England were awful, make no mistake. They didn’t play very well and it was just one of those days. They’ll say ‘let’s put it all to bed in one game’ and move on. I don’t think this will have any bearing on a World Cup in May, June and July in England next year. It was just a very bad day at the office,” he told Sky Sports.
In the game, the Brits were nowhere near their form which has dominated various strong opponents in recent times. Also their regular skipper Morgan skipped the dead rubber and were led by Jos Buttler who failed with the bat. England’s only resistance with the bat in this game came from Ben Stokes (67) and Moeen Ali (37) but was far too high a mountain to climb for them. Earlier, their bowlers also failed to impress as all seven bowlers went for an economy rate of above five.
Hussain praised the current England side saying unlike the previous squads that played the game more theoretically and overthought, the current one knows to shrug off things. “We have got an England one-day side we can be very proud of,” he added.
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