“There’s a reason why the guys won the T20 World Cup last year” – Johnny Bairstow shows confidence in England squad for ODI World Cup 2023

England recently lost their third match of the ODI World Cup 2023 against Afghanistan by a huge margin of 69 runs. England has already lost two matches out of the three games they have played, first against New Zealand and now Afghanistan. It will be difficult for the defending champions to bring up their run rate and the team now needs to win back-to-back matches to stay in a good position on the points table. 

England’s opening batsman Johnny Bairstow Recently opened up about England’s back-to-back failures in the ODI World Cup. Johnny believes a loss against Afghanistan is not what defines the English team and the team will bounce back stronger. He also appreciated the Afghani players for their display of the game. 

“I don’t think much has changed, has it? You look at the strength in depth that we have with our batting line-up… I don’t think the firepower can be questioned,” said Johnny Bairstow. 

Johnny Bairstow on England’s match loss against Afghanistan

During an exclusive conversation with ESPNcricinfo, Johnny Bairstow highlighted that there is a particular reason why England won the T-20 World Cup 2022 and the ODI World Cup 2019 and they still are one of the greatest teams in the competition, he said, “There’s a reason why the guys won the T20 World Cup last year; there’s a reason why the guys won the 2019 World Cup, and we’re the defending champions. Just because we’ve lost a game to Afghanistan doesn’t make us bad cricketers or anything like that.”

“You look at [Fazalhaq] Farooqi, his record in the IPL; you look at the three spinners that they’ve got and their records. Just because they play for Afghanistan, they’re no slouches. They’ve got some of the world’s best in there and they’ve got match-winners. We lost that game, we didn’t play well enough, and we’ve accepted that and moved on from that,” added Bairstow.