Mark Wood refused to attribute England’s humiliating
nine-wicket loss to New Zealand on their insufficient preparations and declared
that they will display “resilience” when they play Bangladesh in
Dharamsala the following week.
After nearly two weeks off following their 3-1 series
victory over New Zealand, England flew to Guwahati via Dubai and Mumbai a week
before the tournament’s first game. Prior to leaving, their coaching staff participated
in a 1-0 victory over Ireland that was marred by rain.
During New Zealand’s run chase, their seamers were
unusually sloppy with the new ball; Chris Woakes was particularly guilty of
deviating from the top-of-the-stumps length that had been successful for Matt
Henry. Eoin Morgan was one of several who said England looked
“undercooked” after Wood’s own 0 for 55 from five overs.
But Wood said that England’s preparation had not been
an issue, and that they had simply been outplayed. “I’m not going to use
any excuses,” he said. “It was a tough journey, but no excuses: we
were beaten by a better team. It doesn’t matter if we’d had one day to prepare
or three weeks: if we get beaten like that, we shouldn’t have any excuses.
“They played well and we were off it. That can
happen in international sport. We weren’t quite right and they played really
well… I don’t think our preparation was poor. We prepared well – it was just on
the day, we haven’t performed as we’d have liked.”
England’s two recent World Cup wins – in the 2019
edition of this competition, and in last year’s T20 World Cup – have come after
surprise group-stage defeats left them close to elimination. “We’ve got to
show that resilience again,” Wood said. “We’ll have to draw on it.
“A great trait of the group is resilience and
bouncing back, and calmness within the group. I trust every member in there:
they’ve been through bad times and good times. [We’ll use it] to prove that we
want to keep this trophy, to prove people wrong and there’ll be question marks
now. But as a group, we believe in each other and it’s another chance for us to
show how good a side we are.”