JOIN USEngland captain Stuart Broad has admitted his inexperienced team was ‘not good enough’ after the defending champions crashed out of the World Twenty20.
England’s 19-run defeat against Sri Lanka on Monday was their second loss in three Super Eights games and paved the way for the hosts and the West Indies to advance to the semifinals from group one.
“You can look at the missed opportunities. But I think throughout the tournament, we’ve not quite been good enough,” Broad said on Monday night as his team prepared for the long journey home.
England, who won the 2010 title in the Caribbean under Paul Collingwood, beat only New Zealand in the Super Eights but could have made the semifinals had they defeated Sri Lanka.
Sri Lankan pacer Lasith Malinga dashed the champions’ hopes with three wickets in his first over that reduced England to 18 for three chasing Sri Lanka’s 169 for six.
Broad’s men ended on 150 for nine following a half-century from Samit Patel and his 51-run stand for the eighth wicket with Graeme Swann, who swung his bat to hit 34 off 20 balls with four boundaries and a six.
Patel finished with 67 off 48 balls, but the effort came too late to save England from an early exit.
“It was very disappointing to have gone out, because I believe we do have the firepower in that changing room to go far,” said Broad. “It was frustratingly close.”
The man who could have changed England’s fortunes was star batsman Kevin Pietersen, the man of the tournament in 2010 who was confined to the TV studio in Colombo after being axed for disciplinary reasons.
Broad refused to dwell on Pietersen’s absence, but admitted his side lacked experience to match the firepower of the other teams.
“What you get with young guys is some days of absolute brilliance, and other days a bit of averageness,” he said. “I think, as a team, we’ve probably shown that.”