World Cup 2019: Michael Vaughan and Michael Clarke engage in a fun banter after England won

England entered the World Cup as the world’s best team, the front-liners to lift the trophy. They had been playing like the champions, but all of a sudden, their campaign went off-track. They lost against Sri Lanka and Australia, which badly dent their hopes of qualifying for the semis. The team needed to win both their remaining matches to stay in the hunt and that too against the likes of India and New Zealand.

A loss against India would have meant the end of the four years of hard work to revive England cricket to suit the needs of the modern day hard-hitting and belligerent cricket. However, the team came back strongly to hand over a  31-run defeat to the Indian team. This would have been relieving for all the England fans and the players themselves, who would have been low on confidence after two defeats on a trot.

Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy finally showed why they are the most dangerous opening pair in the World Cup. The duo put on a 160-run stand for the first wicket. The former went on to smash a century, and from there on, there was no looking back. The flat track bullies posted a massive 338, which turned out to be too much for the Men in Blue.

Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli raised some hopes, but only to be dented by the poor batting in the death overs. Once Hardik was out, it looked that the Men in Blue had surrendered without even putting up a fight. The last five overs produced merely 39 runs, which included only three fours and a six. This loss meant that India will have to wait to seal their semi-final berth, whereas England still remained in the tournament.

Experts in awe of England’s team efforts

The experts are all praises for the hosts. Former England captain Michael Vaughan also appreciated his team for the win. “England are back …,” wrote Vaughan on his twitter handle. This shows how much the win had mattered to the team. Every England fan had really wanted them to play as they had in the past few years.

However, former Australian captain Michael Clarke took a funny dig at his tweet. “Where did they go,?” asked Clarke. He seemed to be impressed with the way England have played throughout the tournament.

Where did they go? ????????‍♂️ https://t.co/syTd8wkhWN

— Michael Clarke (@MClarke23) July 1, 2019

With this win, England still has fortunes in their own hand. A win against New Zealand would guarantee them their semis spot. And the team would be banking on the confidence and the rhythm from victory over India to deliver even better performance.