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Matthew Motts and Jos Buttler (Source: Twitter)
The coach of the England team, Matthew Mott, disclosed that he only became aware of the qualification criteria for the 2025 Champions Trophy during their ODI Men’s Cricket World Cup match against India. In that match, the Indian team defeated England by a margin of 100 runs in Lucknow, which left England at the bottom of the World Cup 2023 points table.
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This is the fifth loss for the defending champions in their quest to defend their title, which they won in the 2019 edition of the marquee tournament. When questioned about England's prospects for qualifying in the 2025 Champions Trophy, Mott admitted that he had learned about the qualification scenario just half an hour before the post-match press conference.
“About an hour and a half ago. Well, the Apex Cricket Council do change the rules quite a bit with qualification and to be honest, I don't think it would affect in any way the way we've played in this tournament so it's not a big deal,” said Mott.
Under the most recent Apex Cricket Council ruling, only the top seven teams in the World Cup 2023 group stage, along with the host nation Pakistan, will secure qualification for the 2025 Champions Trophy. This creates a challenging situation for the defending world champions, England, as they currently occupy the last position in the points table.
Our batting is the most concerning part: Motts
Next, England is scheduled to confront Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on November 4, and they have two more group-stage matches against the Netherlands and Pakistan. Regarding areas of improvement, Mott noted that their team has struggled to complete the full 50 overs in most of their World Cup matches. As an example, in their recent match against India, England was bowled out for just 129 runs in 34.5 overs.
“Well, yeah, I suppose the latest thing has been our batting, the thing that's gone wrong. There's no secret that we keep getting bowled out before that we get our full allotment of 50 overs. So that would be a big part of it,” Mott added.