LUCKNOW: Defending champions England are feeling the warmth of a lacklustre World Cup marketing campaign however assistant coach Marcus Trescothick insisted on Saturday that they haven’t “lost faith” within the under-pressure 50-over format.

England face unbeaten hosts India in Lucknow on Sunday, coming into the competition with 4 defeats from 5 matches to languish ninth within the 10-team desk and with their hopes of creating the semi-finals nearly over.

“We’re all feeling the heat. But what can you do? We prepared the same, we’ve done things very similar to what you’d expect,” Trescothick advised reporters.

“Every practice we go through we’re coming out the other side thinking we’re in a good place and feeling quite right. It’s just not quite worked then wh­e­n we go into the games.”

Critics have focused England’s strategy to the 50-over format after they received the crown in 2019.

They performed simply 13 ODI matches within the build-up to their title defence.

“Forgive me, I don’t want to be blunt here, but we haven’t lost faith in what it is,” mentioned Trescothick.

“We love playing any form of cricket, any form of the game that we play. And we were desperate to come here and try and win back-to-back 50 over competitions.”

Meanwhile, Indian batter KL Rahul mentioned vice-captain Hardik Pandya will miss the England match as he continues to get well from a left ankle damage so the hosts might stick together with his substitute Suryakumar Yadav.

“Hardik has been a very important member of the team .. so not having him is also a bit of a miss for the team,” Rahul advised reporters. “Surya will probably get his chance and we know what he can do. So our confidence is in Surya till Hardik comes back.”

Published in Dawn, October twenty ninth, 2023