“Still got work to do…”: England pacer Wood ahead of must-win T20 WC clash against Namibia

North Sound [Antigua and Barbuda], : Ahead of his side’s game against Namibia, England pacer Mark Wood said that even though the team’s standing in the points table looks better now, there is still a lot of work to do after the win over Oman.

The defending champions, England, will be taking on Namibia in their final Group B game at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium at Antigua on Saturday. England is in the third spot with a win, loss and a no result. They have three points in total. Namibia is at the fourth spot, with a win and two losses. England will have to win this game by a big margin in order to qualify for the Super Eights and also pray that Scotland, which is at second place with two wins, a loss, a no result and five points, loses to Australia on Sunday.

Speaking ahead of the game in the pre-match press conference, Wood said about his team and his performance in the previous win over Oman, Wood said, “It feels great. Had to put a stamp on the game and push myself back into the shape of things and the table did not look great, obviously before today but it looks a lot better now. Still work to do but I am feeling a lot better about things after this game.”

Wood said that the bowling unit was extremely ruthless during their eight wicket win over Oman, skittling them out for just 47 runs. He also lauded the batters for finishing the game halfway through the powerplay.

“I think we needed that after probably the last performance where probably did not adapt to the conditions as well, But I feel when we went out to bat, it was not just a case of winning the game. We knew we are going to try and get on with this pretty quickly. So, it was all set up for in that sort of instance and I think the batters did a great job in finishing it quickly,” he added.

Wood said that the group is still focused solely on winning the game against Namibia and other factors like the net-run-rate will be dealt with later.

“I think that was what Jos has sort of hammered in, it is like, cannot look past the fact that we need to play better, cricket and we trained really well this week. There was good intensity in the practice I felt and then today we were right on it and right up for it. Not that we were not up for the other games, it is just that when we were back up against the wall, there were obviously a few negatives flying around and questions being asked and I am really pleased for the bowling unit that we came out and managed to put on a performance,” he added.

Squads:

England Squad: Philip Salt, Jos Buttler, Will Jacks, Jonny Bairstow, Harry Brook, Moeen Ali, Liam Livingstone, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Mark Wood, Reece Topley, Chris Jordan, Ben Duckett, Sam Curran, Tom Hartley

Namibia Squad: Michael van Lingen, Nikolaas Davin, Jan Frylinck, Gerhard Erasmus, JJ Smit, Zane Green, David Wiese, Ruben Trumpelmann, Bernard Scholtz, Jack Brassell, Ben Shikongo, JP Kotze, Malan Kruger, Tangeni Lungameni, Dylan Leicher, Peter-Daniel Blignaut.

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