England registered a hard-fought win against Italy to book their spot in the Super Eight stage of the T20 World Cup by winning three games on the bounce, losing only one game against the West Indies.
The Decision
Batting first after winning the toss, England lost the wicket of Jos Buttler in the third over of the game on the score of 21 and was followed by Philip Salt, who failed to convert the start that he got, leaving the team in a spot of bother.
The Batting
The former T20 World Cup winners needed a substantial partnership to get things back on track, which wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, as they were soon reduced to 92 for 4 with the Italian bowlers striking at regular intervals. Although the English batters were able to stitch small partnerships, they were not able to prolong them.
The Partnership
It took a partnership between Will Jacks and Sam Curran to bring some sanity to England’s innings, which was in total disarray in a little over the first ten overs of the innings, 12.5 to be precise. The duo added 54 runs for the sixth wicket before Curran wasdismissed. The partnership between Jacks and Curran gave the impetus to the English batting innings, which was carried forward by Will Jacks.
The Knock
Jacks scored a crucial half-century and helped England post an above-par total of 202 runs, which at one stage looked impossible to breach, but some intelligent batting from Jacks, who shifted gears according to the situation and was helped by some ordinary bowling from Italy, meant that England had the upper hand after the first innings.
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The Final Push
Other than Curran, Jacks got good support from Jamie Overton, who scored 15 runs off just 9 balls and added 35 runs in a quick-fire fashion, thereby turning the momentum in England’s favour before the start of the second innings.
The Reply
Chasing 203 runs to win, Italy got off to a disastrous start after losing three wickets for 22 runs, and the chances of winning the game looked minimal. However, Justin Mosca and Ben Manenti had other ideas as they kept Italy in the game by adding 92 runs for the fourth wicket with Manenti scoring an attacking half-century.
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The Rebuild
The partnership, which was threatening to take the game away from England, was broken by Will Jacks, who got the better of Manenti, who had already struck him for 21 runs in that particular over and perished in an attempt to hit another six.
The Comeback
Manenti’s wicket proved to be the turning point of the game as England made a strong comeback by picking up wickets at regular intervals, which resulted in Italy falling 24 runs short of what could have been an emphatic win for them, despite some late hitting from Grant Stewart and Jaspreet singh
The Performance
England’s effort with the ball was yet again led by Sam Curran, who picked up three wickets while giving away just 22 runs in his spell of three overs, including some tight bowling in the penultimate over of the game.
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