England suffered a first setback in their pursuit of World Cup glory after a 14-run defeat to Pakistan at Trent Bridge but Joe Root has stressed the importance of remaining calm.
Sparkling centuries from Root and Jos Buttler were scant consolation for the tournament hosts and favourites as Pakistan turned the form book on its head, snapping a run of 11 consecutive one-day international losses.
However, defeat in the round-robin stage is not a disaster by any means and Root believes England will regroup ahead of Saturday’s trip to Cardiff to tackle Bangladesh.
The Yorkshireman said: “The most important thing now for us as a group is not to panic. We know what works for us as a formula, and as a team, but other sides are allowed to play well and we’ve got to make sure we learn quickly and bounce back at Cardiff.
“The temptation is to get a little bit tense, but one of our great strengths as a side is sticking to the way we go about things and be as smart as possible.
“And the beauty of this format is that I do believe the best four teams over the tournament will qualify for the semi-finals and we’ve got to make sure we play some good cricket in our remaining games.
“One thing this side doesn’t do very often is to make the same mistake twice and I’m sure the guys will make sure it’s a very different performance against Bangladesh.”
Pakistan posted 348-8 which, if overhauled, would have set a new tournament record for the highest successful chase.
Root (107) and Buttler (103) came together at 118 for four and though their 130-run stand raised hopes of an unlikely victory, England were ultimately left to rue an uncharacteristically derisory effort in the field.
Mohammad Hafeez was dropped on 14 by Jason Roy before going on to amass 84 while there were mis-fields and overthrows from a side that delivered a masterclass in fielding when they defeated South Africa in the curtain-raiser last week.
England captain Eoin Morgan said: “I don’t think it was that bad a day.
“It was just a really bad day in the field. It hasn’t happened a lot with us but there were mistakes that we don’t normally make. And that’s disappointing.
“We’ve gone from probably one of our best performances in the field at the Oval to, not extremely bad, but it’s cost us probably 15-20 runs in the field which is a lot in the one-day game.
“Our performances with bat and ball throughout the tournament will ebb and flow. Today it wasn’t that bad.”
Provided by Press Association Sport
