“I feel like England always get a bad rap about playing against spin,” Brook said in Mumbai, ahead of the semi-final against India. “We’ve gone to Sri Lanka and we’ve won six games in a row against a subcontinent side who are very good in their own backyard. We’ve got a lot of confidence playing on turning pitches.”
Although England’s batting through the course of this World Cup has been inconsistent – Brook himself the only one of their batters among the tournament’s top 10 run-scorers – their spin attack has been outstanding.
Only Pakistan (who played their entire tournament in Sri Lanka) have taken more wickets with spin this World Cup.
“We’ve got some very good spinners as well,” Brook said. “Our spinners have bowled extremely well in this competition and India will have to tackle that challenge as well.”
“India have always produced very good spinners, and we’ve accepted that before coming into this competition,” Brook said. “Chakravarthy is one of the best bowlers in the world, and I’ll try my best to face him and score as many runs as I can against him.”
Despite apparent improvements in the spin department, one observation about England’s campaign so far has been that it has lacked a “perfect” outing, largely because the batting has not clicked wholesale, as it did for England in their 2019 and 2022 World Cup wins. But why does that matter when England keep winning, Brook argued.
“I don’t think we need a perfect game to win the competition, to be honest,” he said. “Them games that we have won have been nowhere near perfect, and we still managed to get the wins – convincingly in some of them, and tight in some of them. But it’s about the unity that we’ve had to be able to get across the line, and the belief that everybody’s shown throughout these games, and the calmness that we’ve had when the bowlers have stood at the top of their marks.”
