England are drawing confidence from a run of tight victories ahead \u200bof their Twenty20 World Cup semi-final against India, captain Harry Brook said, adding that his team\u2019s \u200cresilience would be a key factor on Thursday at the Wankhede Stadium.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s route to the last four has not all been smooth sailing, with the two-time champions advancing after wins over Sri Lanka, Pakistan and New Zealand, against whom they needed 43 runs \u200boff the final 18 balls to get over the line.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve won tight games, which in World Cups prove \u200bto be very important, and we\u2019ve got a lot of confidence going into the \u2060deeper parts of the game,\u201d Brook told reporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve won games, which we probably shouldn\u2019t have won, \u200band it just feels like we\u2019ve never really been out of any game so far, which holds you in \u200bgood stead in these world competitions.<\/p>\n
Brook\u2019s own form has underpinned that message.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old struck a 50-ball hundred to lift England past Pakistan in Pallekele.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe that we need a perfect game to win the competition. The games that we have won have been \u200bnowhere near perfect, and we still managed to get the wins convincingly in some of them, and then \u200btight in the other games,\u201d Brook said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just the unity that we\u2019ve had to be able to get across the line, \u200cthe \u2060belief that everybody\u2019s shown throughout the games and the calmness that we\u2019ve had when the bowlers have stood at the top of the mark.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former captain Jos Buttler\u2019s form has been scrutinised, with the opener making only 62 runs in seven matches.<\/p>\n
Buttler hit for an extended period in the nets on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think leaving him alone is \u200bprobably the best thing to \u200bdo. He\u2019s been a \u2060powerhouse cricketer for many years there should be no reason to question why he\u2019s in the team,\u201d Brook said.<\/p>\n
England\u2019s top two wicket-takers in the tournament are spinners Adil \u200bRashid and Liam Dawson.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like England always get a bad rap about \u200bplaying against spin. \u2060We\u2019ve gone to Sri Lanka and we\u2019ve won six games in a row against subcontinent sides, who are very good in their own backyard,\u201d Brook said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a lot of confidence playing on turning pitches. (Varun) Chakravarthy is one of \u2060the best \u200bbowlers in the world, and I\u2019ll try my best to face \u200bhim and score as many runs as I can against him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The winners on Thursday will advance to Sunday\u2019s final against \u200bNew Zealand who beat South Africa by nine wickets earlier Wednesday.<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":27801,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-27790","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Brook\u2019s own form has underpinned that message.","published_date":"","news_description":"Brook\u2019s own form has underpinned that message.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27800,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/27790\/revisions\/27800"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=27790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}