"England in the World Cup semis"- Michael Vaughan's prediction after Afghanistan beat England by 69 runs in Delhi
Former England captain Michael Vaughan put his weight behind his national team and backed them to turn around their campaign and reach the semi-finals of the 2023 World Cup.
The Jos Buttler-led side has failed to perform consistently so far in the tournament and has looked a pale shadow of their former selves, who won the trophy in 2019. The defending champions began their campaign on a disappointing note with a crushing loss against 2019 World Cup runner-up New Zealand.
The Kiwis took revenge for the loss in the 2019 summit clash with a comprehensive batting performance against the English team on October 5 at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
England then recovered a bit with a comfortable 137-run win against Bangladesh in Dharamsala. They would have hoped to build on the confidence and go forward with a positive result against Afghanistan.
However, it was not to be as a spirited Afghanistan side outplayed England in both bowling and batting departments to register a comprehensive win on Sunday in Delhi.
The Afghan side batted first and made a decent total of 284. Their spinners then spun a web around the English batters and skittled them out for 215 in 40.3 overs to emerge victorious.
The English side is currently in fifth position on the points table with two points. After observing England's performance against Afghanistan, Michael Vaughan did not lose hope in his team and boldly predicted that they would make it to the semi-finals. Vaughan wrote on X (formerly Twitter):
England in the World Cup semis ..
"We were not at the level we like to be"- England captain Jos Buttler after loss against Afghanistan
Speaking at the post-match presentation, Jos Buttler opened up that it was a tough loss and acknowledged that Afghanistan played better cricket on the day. He said:
"Tough loss to take and obviously couldn't set the tone but congratulations to Afghanistan on the win, they outplayed us today."
He added:
"As a whole we were not at the level we like to be, in World Cups and against good opposition, guys putting under pressure and that's where we need to be. Everyone on the field and we will working on put that right.
The English side will next face South Africa at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai on Saturday (October 21).