Brook hopes focus to shift to on-field action as formidable England take on Nepal
An embattled Harry Brook will hope England hit the top gear and the focus shifts from the incident at a Wellington club to cricket when the two-time champions take on Nepal in their T20 World Cup opener, here on Sunday. Brook is at the helm of a formidable England side which has had a successful run in the T20I format, but the talk around the camp has also been around the incident at the nightclub where the English captain was reportedly involved in an altercation with a bouncer during a night out in the pre-Ashes tour.
The England captain fielded a question related to the incident during the Captains’ Press Conference along with his peers, while all-rounder Will Jacks too had to confront those in their pre-match media commitment here on Friday. “I wasn’t actually in New Zealand, so I don’t know anything about it. It’s just one of those things that he obviously made a wrong decision and he accepted that. He has went out trying to move forward in a positive direction with that,” Jacks said.
“He knows what he has done and there’s nothing you can change about that, so there’s no point focussing on it too much. On his perspective, he wants his cricket to do the talking,” Jacks added. Away from the off-field episode, England have had a perfect build-up to the World Cup and will be one of the teams to beat in the competition. Placed in Group C along with debutants Italy, Nepal, Scotland and the West Indies, England know they will have to hit the top gear from the word go.
England won 11 out of their 17 T20Is while losing only two last year and the team has tremendous fireworks across the board to pile up, or even chase bigger totals. However, bowling in dewy conditions would be a challenge and England will need their experienced campaigner in Adil Rashid to come up with solutions. For Nepal, it is another opportunity to make a strong dent on the world stage. In the last edition, they almost got the better of South Africa with the Proteas winning by a mere one run and Bangladesh were shot out for 106.
Among their most recent achievements is a 2-1 victory over two-time T20 World Cup winners the West Indies, a feat that would certainly fuel Nepal’s fire. Nepal also have fared well in the past, making the final of a tri-series last June which involved the Netherlands and Scotland. They had also made the summit clash of a T20I Quadrangular series featuring Qatar, Hong Kong and Kuwait.
Teams (from):
England: Harry Brook (c), Tom Banton (wk), Jos Buttler (wk), Ben Duckett, Phil Salt (wk), Jacob Bethell, Sam Curran, Liam Dawson, Will Jacks, Jamie Overton, Rehan Ahmed, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Josh Tongue, Luke Wood.
Nepal: Rohit Paudel (c), Aarif Sheikh, Aasif Sheikh (wk), Dipendra Singh Airee, Basir Ahamad, Kushal Bhurtel, Sudneep Jora, Lokesh Bam, Gulsan Jha, Karan KC, Sompal Kami, Sandeep Lamichhane, Sher Malla, Lalit Rajbanshi, Nandan Yadav.
