England under pressure: Can they win the 2023 WC?

The IIC cricket world cup started on the 5th of October. An England team full of young and old superstars have started their journey in uncharted territories as they traveled to India, who host this year’s cricket world cup. The climate is hot and humid and is most definitely unpredictable. So far England have put up a strong fight winning 2/3 of the opening matches, but will they take us all the way?

This team of superstars are old and young as the captain Jos Buttler leads them on to the cricket fields whilst star batter Joe root will try and find his form. The alien ben stokes has had the career that everyone would want to have as he has come out of ODI retirement to play in India ensuring he is able to leave one more special memory for England fans. This will most likely be Ben Stokes last world cup, and what a career he has had.

Photo Credit.. Gareth Copley

Joining the team is young superstar Harry brook who has just come back after a successful tournament in the hundred. His score in that tournament being 238 off 121 in 7 matches. The big match where he got most of his runs from was against Welsh Fire. He smashed the fastest 100 in the hundred (105 off 42 balls) which is completely inhumane. The trustworthy Jonny Bairstow has been an opener for England; he can be unstoppable on his day. One occasion being the score he had that helped England get to the world cup final.

As the young players of the team begin to step up, the pressure they will have to handle will rise. I asked one cricket fan how the young players would deal with the pressure; he said “For me the younger players in the England team have the experience and support to cope with the pressure. They have all performed well in various franchise competitions, The Hundred, The IPL etc with the full houses and playing with / against the best players in the world. Brook performed brilliantly in sub-continent conditions and against spin and Curran was the highest ranked player in the IPL last season.”

Another questioned I ask the fan was if we would have to rely on the experience of one player like we have done with Ben Stokes. He said “As with any cup competition, I think no one player can or will perform at the highest level in every game. So although I believe your senior players do need to play well as often as possible to win the competition, England have proven consistently over the last couple of years that if one player does fall early / bowls slightly wayward, there is always another to stand up and take the game forward and I think with the level our younger players are at, they are more than capable of supporting the senior players when needed.”

As I am writing this England are well away into their campaign in India. Hopefully, they can carry on their dominance in ODI cricket format. However, they are only 5th in the world with the home nation being the number 1 ranked team in the world.

We later asked the same cricket fan if he believes England can up hold themselves as world champions, he said “I believe England have an excellent chance of retaining the world cup, with their new style of play, being aggressive both with the bat and with the ball and creating opportunities rather than waiting for something to happen. However there are a number of excellent teams, Australia improving recently, South Africa as strong as ever, New Zealand always dangerous on their day, but I think for anyone to win the world cup they will need to beat India, the combination of being the No1 side in all 3 formats of the game and home advantage, with the fanatic support in Indian grounds, I think they will be the ones to beat.”

The big question on everyone’s mind is can they retain their title? I’m sure there away support will be strong, but can they handle the India heat and atmosphere.