Broad seeks new English era

Early World Twenty20 exit after SA loss adds to winter woes.

CHITTAGONG: Stuart Broad is looking forward to a new England era after a miserable winter ended with a World Twenty20 exit in Chittagong on Saturday.

England lost by three runs in a pulsating Super-10 stage Group One match against South Africa, going out of the semi-final race after two defeats in three matches.

The loss ended a frustrating winter for England who lost the coveted Ashes in Australia, a whitewash which turned acrimonious with the axing of key batsman Kevin Pietersen.

“It’s going to be a new era of English cricket, isn’t it?” said Broad. “It has been a tough winter.

“We’ve been away a huge amount of time so there are some fantastic opportunities available for players in the summer.”

Broad said, despite the exit, there were some positives for the 2010 World Twenty20 champions.

“We’ve had a lot of positives coming out of this World Cup. If we had gotten out of the group, there would have been a lot of surprised people. We’re disappointed but we’ve done some good stuff with the squad available to us.”

England had looked like the side to beat after they upset favourites Sri Lanka on Thursday, successfully chasing a challenging 190-run target.

Alex Hales smashed a 64-ball 116 to carry England to their first win but South Africa piled up the tournament’s highest total of 196 for five, which was beyond England who managed to reach 193 for seven.

Broad conceded rival captain AB de Villiers’s 29-ball 69 not out made the difference.

“We came up three runs short and there’s some pretty clear ways we could have stopped those three runs,” said the captain.

“We didn’t field well, but that can happen in these conditions. We didn’t have someone hitting a Hales-like knock  scoring 60 or 70 which you realistically need in these sorts of chases.

“But, you have to hold your hands up and that knock from AB is as good as you’ll ever see. He hits the ball 360 degrees and targeted the short boundary with fantastic success.”

England play their meaningless last game against the Netherlands on Monday, while New Zealand will take on Sri Lanka in the second match of the day.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2014.

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