We made it easier for India, says Broad

Stuart Broad must have been gutted at his team’s implosion against spin in its Group A league clash at the ICC World Twenty20 against India, but England’s captain chose to put a positive spin on proceedings, saying he was glad the abject capitulation came in a game with not much at stake from the tournament’s perspective.   

“Any international defeat is really frustrating and especially when you put in a performance like that,” Broad said after England was shot out for 80, its lowest Twenty20 International total, to slump to defeat by 90 runs, its highest margin of defeat. “But it’s a bit easier to take when it doesn’t change what you do. It’s not like tomorrow is going to be a different day and we have to go home. It doesn’t change our destination and future. We will still hop on the bus tomorrow to Kandy.   

“We lost early wickets and spinners enjoy bowling to new batsmen. We saw how well we did the other day when we hit straight and hard. Today, to lose the first couple of wickets hitting across the line is disappointing but you learn from your mistakes and certainly it will be in our minds when we come across it like that again. Going straight was a much better option than going across the ball. We made it pretty easy for India in the end by losing regular wickets.”   

Broad said England would do well to learn from its mistakes, not just with the bat but also with the ball and in the field. “We have to learn from our mistakes,” he admitted. “There were some pretty clear ones, certainly in the batting line-up. The young guys seem to learn very quickly. It’s something we’ll talk about and move forward on. It will be interesting to see whether the Pallekele wicket offers the same as here. During the SLPL, it seamed around a bit so, we’ll have to adjust to the conditions that way.” England will be based in Pallekele for the Super Eights, beginning on 27 September.   

“We were a little bit sloppy in places with the ball and in the field,” he added. “We gave away a few soft twos in the outfield and we didn’t get our lengths as well which we could have done up front. But this (India’s 170 for 4) is the lowest first-innings score on this ground so far in the tournament, we can’t be too disappointed with that. We thought it was chaseable, the wicket was pretty flat and didn’t have the pace in it like it did the other night. We could have held India to a slightly lower score but we were happy with our performance.”   

Broad was guarded in his praise of Harbhajan Singh, who celebrated his return to international cricket with 4 for 12, the best figures by an Indian in T20Is, and the Man of the Match award. “I don’t think the wicket turned much but Harbhajan bowled very nicely, he got his top spinner going well. We knew it was a bit dry at the start but we wanted to try a different balance of our side with the four seamers, and see how that worked in a game that we could afford to lose.”