Cricket: Cricket-Moeen backs England to end slump with aggressive approach

BENGALURU (Reuters) – England may need to take a leaf out of the test side’s “Bazball” playbook and reignite their 50-overs World Cup campaign with an aggressive approach against fellow strugglers Sri Lanka, spin all-rounder Moeen Ali said on Wednesday.

Under test coach Brendon “Baz” McCullum England have forged a result-oriented approach in the longest format and Moeen said the one-day team guided by Matthew Mott must look to play more attacking cricket after losing three of their four games.

“The thing is, Bazball is in test cricket. One day cricket’s different and we’ve been playing different all the time,” Moeen told reporters ahead of Thursday’s match against the 1996 champions at the M Chinnaswamy Stadium.

“We’ve been playing aggressive cricket throughout since 2015 and done it quite well. Probably the lack of that way of cricket has cost us a little bit in this tournament.

“We haven’t been playing that way in my opinion and we need to play that way without slogging the ball. Just be that really aggressive side we know we can be.”

Defending champions England crashed to a team record 229-run defeat by South Africa in the last game leaving their semi-final hopes hanging by a thread.

The clash with Sri Lanka, who have also lost three of their four games, comes at the right time for England and Moeen said the players had to take responsibility.

“We’re obviously disappointed from the result and not just the result, but the way we played. But in the competition you’ve got to move on as quick as you can and regroup,” Moeen added.

“Everything is a must-win and we know we’ve been in this position before, probably not to this degree, but … we have to get our confidence and perform well and bat and bowl and field better than we have done so far in this tournament.”

(Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Bengaluru; Editing by Christian Radnedge)