Cricket World Cup: After England officially crashed out of the 2023 Men’s Cricket World Cup with a 33-run defeat to Australia, off-spin all-rounder Moeen Ali pointed towards a lack of confidence within the team which has led to them being at the bottom of the points table.
“I’m disappointed as a player and we just haven’t been good enough in this tournament from the start really. This match showed the lack of confidence in the side. I thought we were a little bit better tonight and we had the best of conditions and we know we should have won this game, but these things do happen in cricket.”
“I think we’ve just probably tried to do too much and, as players in particular, we try to be really aggressive and then we try to soak up a bit of pressure, but we just couldn’t do it. Even tonight, every time we tried, we were in a position where we were, ‘okay, we’re doing all right here’, we just lost two wickets quickly and then we have to try and rebuild again and then lost two wickets again.”
“It’s a bit schoolboy-error but these things happen when you have no confidence as a side. And we can’t keep saying we’ve got no confidence. We’ve got to do something about it. We’ve tried. I think we’ve tried as a group of players to do that. And sometimes you get a bit internal as a person in the side and it’s never that good for the team,” said Moeen to Sky Sports.
Ali made 42 in England’s pursuit of chasing 287, alongside half-centuries made by Ben Stokes and Dawid Malan. But the trio were taken out quickly as England were bowled out for 253 in 48.1 overs. He also believes the lack of confidence in England has led to poor execution of their skills and plans.
“As a group of players and with the management we’ve tried to just, at times be like, ‘let’s go out and play our way,’ and sometimes when we’ve lost the game we’ve (said) ‘let’s go out and be harder, go harder’, which we’ve always tried to do, and we just haven’t had the confidence. The lack of belief in the side… it’s something to say it but then to go out and do it. I don’t think we that we’ve done it. ”
“Lack of runs, lack of wickets, not fielding as good as we know that we can … when you haven’t got runs as an individual, you’re a little bit embarrassed of your own performances, and you can get a little bit internal, and I think we’ve done that. In the past we’ve just, I think stuck our chest out and said ‘guys, I’m going out’ and tried to take it on, and we just haven’t done it,” added Moeen.
England have two more matches before rounding off their 2023 World Cup campaign –against Netherlands and Pakistan at Pune and Kolkata respectively.