{"id":520163,"date":"2026-03-05T11:09:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/520163\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T11:09:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T11:09:11","slug":"harry-brook-backs-awesome-england-to-find-a-way-past-india-into-t20-world-cup-final-t20-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/520163\/","title":{"rendered":"Harry Brook backs \u2018awesome\u2019 England to find a way past India into T20 World Cup final | T20 World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

England have abandoned their pursuit of perfection as they plot a path to victory over India and a place in the T20 World Cup<\/a> final but Harry Brook remains confident they can beat any opponent. \u201cThis team is awesome,\u201d the captain said. \u201cWe\u2019re never out of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

England have faltered and stumbled their way to the last four, impressive at times but always flawed. As Brook said after the victory over Pakistan<\/a>, when his own performance with the bat got close to flawless: \u201cWe haven\u2019t had the perfect game yet, and hopefully that\u2019s just round the corner.\u201d Or as Sam Curran said on Tuesday: \u201cAll of us will be hoping that the perfect game comes Thursday.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, as they prepare for their toughest test yet at a packed Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Thursday, their ambition has been downgraded. \u201cI don\u2019t believe we need a perfect game to win the competition, to be honest,\u201d said Brook.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe games we have won have been nowhere near perfect and we\u2019ve still managed to get the wins \u2013 convincingly in some of them and tight in the others. It\u2019s just the unity we\u2019ve had to be able to get across the line, the belief that everybody\u2019s shown, and the calmness we\u2019ve had.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re definitely not unbeatable but it gives us a lot of confidence going into tomorrow. We\u2019ve won those tight games. We\u2019ve won games which we probably shouldn\u2019t have won. We don\u2019t feel like we\u2019re ever out of the game. All it takes is for one of the top order to make a decent score, or one of our five or six bowlers to have an amazing day out, and all of a sudden you\u2019re walking away with a victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

India have also failed to hit the impossibly high standards expected of them. The local broadcaster has at least stopped wondering when they would score over 300 \u2013 they have exceeded 200 only twice, against Zimbabwe and Namibia, while in losing to South Africa they were bowled out for just 111, their third-lowest score in a completed innings at any T20 World Cup.<\/p>\n

England train in Mumbai before their semi-final against India on Thursday. Photograph: Rafiq Maqbool\/AP<\/p>\n

England emerged from the Super 8s having taken the most wickets at the tournament while also scoring more runs than any of the other semi-finalists; India have dropped the most catches. Meanwhile India\u2019s bowling coach, the former South Africa international Morne Morkel, admitted that \u201cat times we\u2019re guilty if we\u2019re honest of giving away maybe 15-20 runs in the field\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t really spoken about the perfect game,\u201d Morkel said. \u201cHopefully now in the last two games we can put that special performance in. Unfortunately we all know how the game goes, that success is never guaranteed.\u201d<\/p>\n

There may be no guarantees, but India\u2019s attempts to maximise the chances have included all the standard preparations and a few less usual ones: they rescheduled their session on Tuesday to ensure they would not be training during a lunar eclipse, considered by local superstition to be a time of increased negative energy.<\/p>\n

Morkel said India would \u201cgo in with a mindset that it\u2019s going to be a high-scoring game\u201d but analysis of the playing surface has been hampered by the high temperatures in Mumbai, which forced the ground staff to apply liberal water a day out. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot hotter all of a sudden, so allowing the wicket not to dry out is going to be key for it to play well,\u201d the South African said. \u201cIt\u2019s quite soft, so it\u2019s hard to get an accurate read on it. But are we expecting it to be a good wicket? We\u2019re preparing ourselves for tough conditions, and then from there we will assess.\u201d<\/p>\n

While England have not confirmed their team, Jamie Overton is likely to return to provide a third seam-bowling option, with Adil Rashid, Liam Dawson, Will Jacks and Jacob Bethell all available to bowl spin as required.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a lot of stats, a lot of videos, we can see where they\u2019re trying to hit the ball, we know the wagon wheels and whatnot, we know the match-ups,\u201d Brook said of his bowling plans. \u201cThey\u2019re a very good side and they can adapt to different bowlers but my job is to try and make it as uncomfortable for them as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

England are likely to find the atmosphere uncomfortable enough, let alone India\u2019s star-stuffed side. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t say we\u2019re underdogs,\u201d said Brook. \u201cWe\u2019ve got this far now, and it would be stupid of us to not be confident. They are probably the favourites but we\u2019re going to go out there and give it a hell of a crack.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"England have abandoned their pursuit of perfection as they plot a path to victory over India and a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":520164,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,740,85],"class_list":["post-520163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cricket","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=520163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/520163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/520164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=520163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=520163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=520163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}