Kolkata, Feb 16 (IANS) England captain Harry Brook admitted his side had yet to hit peak form despite securing qualification for the Super 8s with a hard-fought win over Italy in their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Group C clash at the Eden Gardens.

“We haven’t played our best cricket, but at the end of the day, we’ve made it through, and we’re heading to the next round, so we can be happy about that,” Brook said during the post-match presentation.

England posted 202/7 after being put in to bat, with Will Jacks anchoring the innings with a composed half-century. However, Brook acknowledged that England’s batting unit had not been as consistent as they would have liked throughout the group stage.

“Yeah, it’s been a little bit of a trend so far in the competition. We haven’t managed to string along the scores that we’d like to do as a batting unit, but that’s part of T20 cricket,” he said.

Highlighting the format’s unpredictability, Brook stressed the need for continued intent, saying, “It’s a fickle game. One day you can smack a hundred, and the next day you can get out first ball. We’ve just got to keep on being brave and taking our options up.”

England’s bowlers were tested by a spirited Italy chase, but Brook credited his team’s composure and fielding standards for ensuring they held their nerve. He reserved special praise for England’s death bowling, particularly Sam Curran, whose timely breakthroughs helped seal the victory.

“We fielded excellently. We bowled nicely as well, and I never really had any doubt there at the end with Sammy and Jamie over the principle the last couple of overs. He (Sam) was awesome. He has been throughout the tournament so far, and we’ve managed to scrape through, but there’ve been some good performances, especially from him and Will Jack, who has stepped up when we’ve been in tricky situations. That’s really good to see,” he added.

Brook also explained his decision-making in using Jofra Archer aggressively during the powerplay to gain early momentum. Looking ahead to the next phase of the tournament, he emphasised the importance of adapting quickly and improving England’s batting intent.

“When you want something, you want to try and get as much out of it as possible and try and pull a real big dent into the opposition. We’ve probably played there before. We had a couple of weeks there, so we know what the conditions are like. So we’ve just got to go back and do what we were doing whilst we were there, which is adapting,” the English skipper said.

He reiterated the need for a more fearless approach with the bat and concluded by expressing hope that England would peak at the right time in the tournament, stating, “But as I said a minute ago, make sure we’re being brave with the bat, especially. You’ve only got 20 overs to bat, and you’ve got to try and get as many runs as possible. And that’s probably been our little downfall in this group stage so far, is that we haven’t quite been brave enough and taken our options as much as we felt. Hope that we peak at the right time, as you said, to still get all the way ahead of you.”

–IANS

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