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England did enough to beat Italy and secure a spot in the Super Eights, if not – again – to establish themselves among the form teams of this tournament. Harry Brook had previously declared of this tournament that he would “rather not start amazing and finish amazing than start amazing and finish bad”, and in that sense alone it is proceeding entirely according to plan. The next stage is unlikely to be so forgiving.
They got the result they desperately needed, but if yet again the full member nation beat the associate there were plenty of awkward moments along the way. Set a target of 203 after England scored the second highest total of their T20 World Cup history, and reduced to one for two at the end of their first over, Italy simply refused to accept they were beaten.
Even when they needed 64 runs from the last four overs, with just three wickets remaining, they kept going: Grant Stewart, on his way to 45 off 23, hit two sixes off Archer’s final over and two more off Adil Rashid’s and suddenly England’s nerves were jangling again. Then Sam Curran did his death-overs thing, Jamie Overton finished the job and Italy were all out for 178, England winning by 24.
Ben Manenti’s brutal, brilliant innings of 60 off 25 will grab the attention but this was, with few exceptions, an excellent all-round performance from the Italians. There were a couple of mistakes in the field but their catching was impeccable, most notably Anthony Mosca’s, stooping while sprinting forwards from deep backward square leg, to dismiss Phil Salt. Perhaps the wicket proved more helpful for the batters as night fell – in choosing to bat first Harry Brook, who started a T20 by winning the toss for the eighth game in a row, might have been guilty of making the right choice for their last match rather than their latest one – but they still needed the skill to take advantage.
Mosca, who has grown his hair in homage to an Italian hero of football World Cups in Paolo Maldini, and most notably Manenti produced the best partnership of the match, and for every moment they were together England’s chances of victory appeared less secure. They had scored 92 off 48, hauling Italy from apparently inevitable disaster at 22 for three and back into contention, when Manenti’s vicious assault on a Will Jacks over, which had already brought him two sixes and as many fours, ended with him picking out Tom Banton at long-on.
Jacks’ bowling was expensive but it was his explosive half-century, his 53 coming off just 22 balls, that powered England towards a match-winning total, the 27-year-old inspiring a late-innings acceleration that saw them haul their score from a concerning 124 for five with five overs remaining to a much more mighty 202.
It became in certain respects precisely the innings this team is built for, plumbing the full extent of their batting depth with something that in the end resembled efficiency: Jofra Archer, the only person not classified either as a batter or an all-rounder who had to strap on his pads, came in with three balls remaining and faced just one of them.
But if the view at the end of their journey was a handsome one, the route there was occasionally ugly. Much about England’s innings was wearyingly familiar, starting with the fate of their openers. As he had against Scotland in their previous match Jos Buttler sent a leading edge looping high to mid-on after scoring three off four. Phil Salt, who in England’s second game of the tournament scored 30 off 14 against West Indies before getting caught in the deep, scored 28 off 15 before meeting an identical fate. This opening partnership has been one of the team’s great strengths but when they falter their teammates seem at best uncertain, flirting occasionally with panic.
But if no batter until Jacks stayed around for long enough to chisel their name into the headlines, most made useful contributions. Like the team across this group stage they did not truly excel, but they did just enough.
