‘Losing to Afghans would be horrendous’

2015 World Cup

Cricket365
March 26, 2015

England assistant coach Paul Farbrace has admitted that losing their final World Cup match against Afghanistan on Friday doesn't bare thinking about, and that such an event would make the loss to Bangladesh pale in comparison.

England were knocked out of quarter-final contention when they lost a fourth game out of five, with the Tigers doing a bang-up job with the ball to prevent England from advancing. They must now play one last game against the Afghans, and the pressure to win is immense.

Farbrace said on Thursday: "If losing the other day to Bangladesh was terrible, we couldn't possibly imagine what it would be like if tomorrow goes against us… because that would be horrendous.

"Our job now is to make sure we give ourselves the best chance, clear heads, and go and play proper cricket tomorrow."

The assistant coach went on to say that the mood in the camp was 'subdued' after their defeat, and that losing the three games early on, against Australia, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka made it very tough to recover.

Farbrace continued: "The last two days have been pretty ordinary, really. We've all felt the huge disappointment.

"We came here wanting to give it a go and really play some exciting cricket and we haven't done that. We got blown away in the first two games and I don't think we've really recovered from that.

"There has been a lot said about perhaps our nervousness and the tension that we're playing with. I think it's hard to argue against that. I think that's been the biggest disappointment over the last couple of days – thinking about what might have been.

"Practice yesterday was a bit subdued. It wasn't as good as it perhaps has been, and that isn't for anything other than the boys are still hurting from the other night and there is huge disappointment."