This has officially been the World Cup of thrillers. It’s a close contest for the top four spots. West Indies all matches have been extremely thrilling, Australia have been clinical, India are not at their best and South Africa are unbeaten just like Australia. Now, the next amazing fixture will be between the hosts New Zealand and England. Katherine Brunt believes the pressure will be a lot more on the hosts. This is because this match has ended up being a knock-out contest, given how tight the race is to seal a spot in the Semis.
England are the defending champions. However, they had a terrible start to the tournament. They lost all of their first three matches. Fortunately, they made a comeback and defeated India by four wickets. This victory of England made the race even more thrilling, as it wasn’t already. The hosts New Zealand don’t have a good momentum as they have lost to back-to-back matches.
India and England will have a tight competition between them if both the teams win their remaining fixtures. England has the advantage though as they can boost their net run-rate against the two bottom-ranked teams in the form of Bangladesh and Pakistan.
You can’t be in form all the time – Katherine Brunt
“Obviously we’re in a position where we are relying on other people’s results,” Brunt said. “So there’s something of becoming a fan of other teams, as it may be, which is not what you want but that’s just the reality of it. But it’s been great to watch all the other nations, and be a part of games like that, putting on exciting games of cricket.
“These things generally happen rarely, so for every game to be going down the wire just shows you how many nerves there are, and how much teams have improved. We don’t necessarily take it for granted or think less of these teams, it’s just we’ve not played these teams in forever. People can improve in six months, never mind three or four years. So it’s been a learning experience along the way, and it’s great to see everybody playing good cricket and different people coming out of the woodwork.
You can’t be in form all the time. But what you can do is always show fight and turn up, and that’s what we’re doing. It might not be pretty at times. But that’s just how we’ve got to do it, and how we’re going to get past each game. Hopefully, things will improve.”
