{"id":416684,"date":"2026-02-09T19:49:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T19:49:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/416684\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T19:49:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T19:49:51","slug":"englands-habit-of-winning-ugly-in-tight-games-gives-them-t20-world-cup-hope-t20-world-cup-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/416684\/","title":{"rendered":"England\u2019s habit of \u2018winning ugly\u2019 in tight games gives them T20 World Cup hope | T20 World Cup 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another win, and if England emerged from the Wankhede after their fraught victory against Nepal<\/a> on Sunday without much of a strut to their step, they did so with two points in their pockets and the bandwagon still rolling. They have now won 11 of their 12 completed T20s in the past year and in their most recent two games they have been reminded that winning ugly can be more powerful than winning easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have wanted it to be as close as it was to be honest,\u201d Jacob Bethell said. \u201cBut this is my first World Cup. Watching previous World Cups you want to get those little tricky games, to get a feel for them and just know you\u2019ve got the confidence to get over the line in them. It\u2019s not going to do us any harm to go through that.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was a superficially underwhelming display, with some of the team\u2019s most reliable performers \u2013 most notably Adil Rashid and Jofra Archer \u2013 struggling. But there will be more confidence that, even when the stars fail to shine, others will step up. And though England are still a long way from even thinking about winning this tournament, they also know that edging such encounters can be the mark of\u00a0a champion side.<\/p>\n

It is rare for any team to win a World Cup without coming\u00a0through at least one such game. The 2024 champions India looked to be on their way to defeat by Pakistan in their second match<\/a> before Jasprit Bumrah conceded just three in its penultimate over. In 2022 England found themselves with no margin for error after losing a rain-affected game to Ireland and, in their final group match, edged past Sri Lanka with two balls to spare<\/a>. In 2021 Australia needed only 119 to beat South Africa in their first game, and managed it again with two balls\u00a0remaining.<\/p>\n

It had been notable that, in the days before their campaign got under way, the one game of their recent run England kept referring to was not the 146\u2011run defeat of South Africa in Manchester last September, or the stroll against Ireland in Malahide with six wickets and nearly three overs to spare, but the time they defended a meagre 128 in Pallekele<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It had, it is true, been their most recent outing, its memories the freshest. But it was also a ropey performance, rescued in its final overs when they contrived to make Sri Lanka, from the apparently serene position of needing 39 off the last 42 balls with six wickets in hand, crumble. Bethell called it \u201ca nice tight finish\u201d. Sometimes the most savoured scorelines are not those secured in most style.<\/p>\n

Liam Dawson, on his World Cup debut, came to the fore against Nepal on a day when Adil Rashid was hit out of the attack. Photograph: MB Media\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cThat game was awesome,\u201d said Harry Brook before the start of tournament. \u201cOne thing we said after that was that the belief was there for every single one of them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were well behind the game at one point. We were at drinks and we all just went: \u2018Look lads, anything can happen here. We get a couple of wickets and it all changes.\u2019 We all had that belief to go out there and win that game.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Brook cannot have realised was how soon he would need to tap in to that reserve of confidence. Five days later, and 2,000km away, his team were back on the field, talking at another drinks break, and once again reminding each other how quickly things might change.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just spoke about\u00a0how there\u2019s a long time left to go in the game. Six overs,\u201d Will\u00a0Jacks said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverything happens quickly in T20 cricket. Six overs is still a very long time. After that we bowled two very good overs and all of a sudden we were ahead. That\u2019s how quickly the game can change.<\/p>\n

\u201cHarry was very good there at keeping level\u2011headed. Jos [Buttler] spoke as well. Those experienced guys are crucial when those pressure situations come around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those drinks were taken after 14 overs of Nepal\u2019s run chase. England, and many neutral observers, had believed their total of 184 was enough to secure a comfortable victory, but Nepal had just plundered 19 runs from what turned out to be Rashid\u2019s final over.<\/p>\n

From there England turned the game around with two wickets, and 16 runs, from the next three overs only to surrender control again. They found themselves with six balls to go, defending 10, with the ball in the hands of Sam Curran.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat last game in Sri Lanka gave\u00a0us confidence,\u201d Bethell said. \u201cAnd when you\u2019ve got match-winners in the team like Sam \u2013 he\u2019s a match-winner, it doesn\u2019t matter what he\u2019s done previously in the game or games prior, if you need him to come and win you a game, he\u2019s there for you.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Liam Dawson, finally playing a World Cup game at the age of 35 and at his fifth tournament as a squad member or travelling reserve, it had already been a memorable day.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d tried to play a good game but fair play to Nepal, they had us on the ropes,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was far from a perfect performance, but you come to a World Cup and you just want to win. Sometimes you win ugly \u2013 you don\u2019t play your best,\u00a0but you just win.\u201d<\/p>\n

For England, Sunday was not a confident first step on their World Cup journey but it might have been a useful one. \u201cI think winning ugly is a great trait. It\u2019s incredibly difficult to replicate that experience that you get,\u201d Jacks said. \u201cA game like that, where we potentially weren\u2019t expecting it to go down to the last ball and it has \u2013 hopefully when we get in that situation in the rest of the tournament, which we definitely will at some stage, we\u2019ll be able to look back on this experience and take that with us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Another win, and if England emerged from the Wankhede after their fraught victory against Nepal on Sunday without…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-416684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-cricket","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}