Sitting in the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s Mumbai headquarters, adjacent to the Wankhede Stadium, three days before the start of England’s World Cup campaign, Harry Brook was asked about captaining a T20 side in its latest, even-more-wild-scoring iteration, against opponents looking to flay sixes with ungodly regularity. “Yeah, you’ve got to stay with a cool head as much as you possibly can,” he said. “You’ve just got to try to be as calm as possible.”
In England’s last World Cup fixture at the Wankhede, in 2023’s 50-over tournament, calm and cool heads were exactly what they were missing. After mystifyingly electing to field against South Africa on a searing hot afternoon, they effectively melted; Heinrich Klaasen scored a century, England chased 400 and were rolled out for 170. It is a grisly memory mercifully borne by only a few members of the current squad, which includes just three survivors of that side (Brooks, Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid).
A 3pm start (9.30am GMT), a shorter format and Mumbai’s pleasantly cool February evenings mean there should be no repeat of that particular torture when they get this World Cup under way against Nepal on Sunday, or in their second game, a 7pm (1.30pm) start against West Indies in the same venue three days later. But they are doing everything within their power to keep those heads cool as the intervening hours tick away.
The team hotel is conveniently located a kilometre away from the Wankhede, a handy booking which appeared to guarantee they would avoid commutes through the notoriously snarled-up streets of Mumbai. But then they were allocated training facilities at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai, a separate city entirely and requiring a potential three-hour round trip. The team management decided the inconvenience of this journey was even worse than not training at all, particularly when sessions on the eve of matches are often of reduced length and intensity.
So Friday’s training, in which Phil Salt took part three days after suffering a back spasm – his fitness for the opener will be decided on Saturday – was rearranged for the evening at the Wankhede (which the USA helpfully vacated, instead putting on a voluntary session in Navi Mumbai). With that stadium busy on Saturday hosting India’s fixture against the Americans, England have cancelled their final training session altogether.
It seems a sensible decision in every way but one. Their last game in Sri Lanka was on Tuesday, and this is hardly a team short on match practice or impetus. “It’s not so much momentum, it’s more team unity and feeling strong within ourselves and having that confidence,” said all-rounder Will Jacks. “We’ve built up a lot of trust in each other and I think the performances we put in there, not just winning but how we did it, it really bonds the group. At times in the World Cup we’re obviously going to be put under pressure and that’s something we can look back on and try to replicate.”
But the fact is that before those back-to-back white-ball series victories England had won little this winter except a reputation for taking an extremely relaxed approach to all things cricket. Opting to complete their World Cup preparations around the pool of their luxury hotel leaves them exposed to further criticism should Nepal, who had Friday off but will train in Navi Mumbai on Saturday, spring a surprise by extending their own impressive form on Sunday.
Nepal have won 10 of their last 12 official T20 internationals, beating West Indies (twice), Scotland and the Netherlands along the way, and come into the tournament having recorded victories in both of their warm-ups in Chennai, albeit against Oman and Canada. Rohit Paudel, their captain, is the only player to have appeared in all 42 of their games across the last two years but eight of the XI have played in 30 or more and form an experienced core. Sunday’s game is reported to be close to selling out, with Mumbai’s large Nepali expat community, estimated at more than 200,000 people, likely to make up the majority of what England may find a hostile crowd.
“We know lots about every team but they’re a team we don’t see as much, so I think that’s a challenge in itself,” said Jacks. “You can never take anything for granted. I think we have to prepare as well as we can and we have to turn up and be 100%. You can’t go easy in any game and expect to bring it up later in the group stage. Every single game is critically important.”
The relatively early start means England avoid one issue that may assist underdogs across the tournament: dew, which had a huge impact on the 2021 T20 World Cup and may do so again.
“It’s a difficult one to predict. You play on days when you’re expecting it to be dewy and then it’s not and vice versa,” said Jacks, who was sporting an eyecatching, freshly bleached haircut (“I’ve had the Eminem jokes, asking me to rap a bit. Some guys say it’s good, some say it’s awful. I’ll probably have my hat or helmet on most of the time”). “But we know in T20 unless it’s very obviously a bat-first scenario most teams are looking to chase and dew is obviously a part of that.”
