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We're a different sort of animal now: Plunkett


Bangladeshpost
Published : 10 Jul 2019 09:08 PM | Updated : 06 Sep 2020 09:20 AM

Liam Plunkett believes this England side are "a different animal" to their predecessors and "can beat anyone in the world" if they play well, ESPN reports.

Plunkett made his international debut in 2005 and played his first World Cup match in 2007, but admits to have never previously been part of a side who he thought could win the tournament.

"For me, being involved in England squads of the past, I never expected to win a World Cup," Plunkett said. "We had amazing players but I never thought we'd win it. I played in teams where you didn't expect to win and the public didn't expect you to win.

"But with this squad the public sort of expect us to win games and series now. We've played well over the last four years, we've been ranked No. 1 and we're feeling in a good place. We've made cricket exciting again and we've got people watching it.

"Australia are a great team," he said. "They have great players and they have experience. They've been there and done it before. But we're a different sort of animal compared to our last team. And we feel on our day if we play some good cricket we can beat anyone in the world.

"This journey we've been on with this group of boys now comes down to this semi-final. It would be nice to finish this four-year cycle by winning the World Cup. Playing for your country is massive and if you can go ahead and win this game and win the final, it's huge for English cricket. I don't think I'll play another World Cup, so individually I think it is the biggest game of my career."

"We went away from [playing] our [style of] cricket," he said. "We like to be positive but not reckless and we went away from our positive brand of cricket and went into our shell a little bit. We know we're better than that. We want to attack in a positive way without being reckless and I think that's how we've been for the last however many years.

"When we have been beaten [in the past], we've not taken it lightly but we have put a line under it and gone on to the next game. But after getting beaten by Pakistan and Sri Lanka we dwelt on it a little bit rather than just forgetting about it and moving on. We can improve that by playing our positive brand of cricket.

"There was a point against New Zealand when we got held back in the middle overs and we thought we could have made 370. They're allowed to bowl well - which they did - but we feel we could have kicked on from there. We could have got 360-370 against both New Zealand and India."