England coach Matthew Mott has warned Jos Buttler’s men to be wary of the threat Rohit Sharma’s India will pose in the 2024 T20 World Cup semi-final.
England and India are set to face each other in the second semi-final of the ICC T20 World Cup 2024 at the Providence Stadium in Guyana. Both teams will play a replay of the previous T20 WC SF in 2022 at the Adelaide Oval, where the English team, led by Jos Buttler, had won by 10 wickets.
Under the captaincy of Jos Buttler, the team won the edition of the T20 World Cup in Land Down Under, beating Pakistan in the final. This year, in defending the title, the English team has done everything well and looks like a much better team than the team that finished seventh in the ODI World Cup last year.
Regardless of whether England are a better team than their CWC 2023 team or not, they are certainly a team capable of defending the title. The Three Lions learned a lot from last year’s 50-over World Cup and the implementation of that improvement has been evident in the West Indies and the United States.
To be one step closer to defending the title they won in 2022, England need to beat the unbeaten Indian team in the semi-finals. Jos Buttler and company. He had had it very easy against India during the previous WC T20 semi-final, but this time, his head coach Matthew Mott issued a warning.
Matthew Mott says this Rohit Sharma-led Indian team looks different
While speaking to reporters, Matthew Mott shed light on how different he believes the Indian team will be in the T20 World Cup 2024. Mott highlighted that Rohit Sharma’s men were quite unsure of how much they had to score to win in the SF 2022 on a good field at the Adelaide Oval.
“I think when we got back to that semi-final, obviously on a good pitch in Adelaide, we put India on and that was a risk. I thought they weren’t sure what a good result was.” – Mott told reporters.
Matthew Mott went on to state that Rohit Sharma and his Men in Blue are going to be tough in England this time. Mott feels India will go all out to ensure they post a big total and try to put pressure on the reigning champions. The English coach also believes that it will be a good duel between two of the most balanced teams in the T20 WC 2024.
“I think the focus now is that they might come hard against us and try to maximize the power play and put the score out of our reach. I think we have two very good batting lineups, the pitchers are classy as well. So I think it will all come down to who summarizes those conditions faster and who puts the opponent at a disadvantage first,” concluded Matthew Mott.
