Jonny Bairstow says some pundits are waiting for England to fail at World Cup
Written by News on 28/06/2019
Jonny Bairstow says some pundits are ‘waiting for England to fail’ at their home World Cup.
England came into the tournament as the top-ranked one-day side in the world, but defeats to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia have left their semi-final hopes in the balance.
England play India – who are unbeaten in the World Cup and have overtaken England in the ICC one-day rankings – in their next match at Edgbaston on Sunday, and Bairstow has come out firing in the build up.
He said: “People are waiting for us to fail. They are not willing us on to win. In many ways they are waiting for you to lose so they can jump on your throat.
“It’s just showbiz, they are paid to have an opinion and if they don’t have an opinion they get sacked.
“Everyone is talking like we are eighth or ninth in the table. Chill out, you’re panicking.
“The comments and things like that, you can give it too much air time and then all of a sudden, before you know it, it’s a big thing and it’s actually really not.”
Following their game against India, England will play New Zealand in their final group game. They go into both games knowing they haven’t beaten either side at a World Cup since 1992.
However, England did beat India in their ODI series last year, and Bairstow says they will stick to the attacking brand of cricket that helped earn them that win, despite their recent defeats.
“It’s going to be interesting against India, we obviously know the following that they’ve got and it should be a cracking atmosphere,” said Bairstow.
“Last summer we played really good cricket against them and we won that series and we won it well, so I think we go about it the same way we went about it and have been going about our cricket. Our method doesn’t change.”
(c) Sky News 2019: Jonny Bairstow says some pundits are waiting for England to fail at World Cup
