Honest Confession by the England Captain After Defeat by Afghanistan
The captain of the England cricket team, Jos Buttler, admitted his team was "outplayed" by Afghanistan in their ICC World Cup 2023 clash in Delhi. Afghanistan bundled out England for 215 to claim their second Cricket World Cup victory, eight years after defeating Scotland in Australia. This time, the defending champions were on the receiving end. Buttler said his team failed to perform well with both bat and ball as Afghanistan were on top of their game.
In a post-match conference, Jos Buttler said, "Disappointing to win the toss and concede that many, me missing that first ball down the leg side set the tone. Credit goes to Afghanistan; they outplayed us today. It came down to execution; we weren't quite at the level we'd like to be at with both bat and ball. They have some fantastic bowlers; the dew didn't come in as much as we expected, and the ball held up a bit too. They bowled dead straight and kept the stumps in play; we just weren't quite good enough.”
He also said, "You got to let these defeats hurt; there's no point in getting over things too quickly; we need to reflect. There's a lot of character in this group; we need to show a lot of resilience and come back stronger. We need to have guys who are able to perform under pressure, and that's what all of us will be working hard towards.”