‘Our spinners will challenge India’: ENG captain Brook eyes T20 World Cup upset in Mumbai
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "‘Our spinners will challenge India’: ENG captain Brook eyes T20 World Cup upset in Mumbai")
‘Our spinners will challenge India’ ENG captain Brook eyes T20 World Cup upset Photograph: (Others)
Ahead of the T20 World Cup semifinal in Mumbai, England captain Harry Brook challenges the "can't play spin" narrative. See what he had to say about facing India and their spin threat.
England are not bad against spin as the narrative sells in world cricket, their T20I captain, Harry Brook, said ahead of the team’s marquee T20 World Cup semifinal against India in Mumbai. As Team England prepares to take on the defending champions and title contenders, Brook warned the Indian unit against discounting its team’s ability to tackle spin, reminding everyone of how they fared in Sri Lanka, where the pitches assisted spinners more.
Despite England’s shaky start to the tournament, they topped Group 2 in Super 8s and qualified for the semis by beating teams with world-class spinners, including Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Even though he vouched for his batters to dominate the Indian spin threat, Brook warned India to have a challenging time against the English spinners. For the Poms, their spin-bowling unit clicked throughout, with veteran Adil Rashid picking 11 wickets thus far, Liam Dawson second on the list with 10 and all-rounder Will Jacks returning with seven in this edition alone. Rehan Ahmed was also among the wickets in his lone outing, picking two in his four-over spell.
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“We've got some very good spinners as well. Our spinners have bowled extremely well in this competition, and India will have to tackle that challenge as well,” Brook said ahead of the semifinal clash in Mumbai.
Speaking on his team’s poor reputation for playing spin, Brook tried to break the notion, saying, “I feel like England always get a bad rap about playing against spin. We've gone to Sri Lanka, and we've won six games in a row against a subcontinent side who are very good in their own backyard. We've got a lot of confidence playing on turning pitches.”
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‘Varun is India’s best bowler’
Brook found scoring runs against Varun Chakaravarthy challenging previously, and while acknowledging him as India’s best spinner right now, Brook didn’t drop his guard in the quest to take him on.
"India have always produced very good spinners, and we've accepted that before coming into this competition," Brook said. "Chakravarthy is one of the best bowlers in the world, and I'll try my best to face him and score as many runs as I can against him."
Besides, Brook said England doesn’t need a perfect game to beat India, citing examples of England’s earlier wins in this tournament, which were far from being on point.
"I don't think we need a perfect game to win the competition, to be honest. The games that we have won have been nowhere near perfect, and we still managed to get the wins - convincingly in some of them, and tight in some of them. But it's about the unity that we've had to be able to get across the line, and the belief that everybody's shown throughout these games, and the calmness that we've had when the bowlers have stood at the top of their marks,” Brooks concluded.
