After all, it may be a quintessential World Cup ending for the Englishmen.
Four years in the making, and winning the tournament with Eoin Morgan holding it aloft at the Lord’s balcony would be a sight every English cricket fan will want to rejoice for the years to come.
It could undeniably be savouring for the fact that the first picks, shockingly on the brink of a deplorable exit, played the game of their lives to stay in the hunt.
The Three Lions are close to achieving it, yet far.
Three colossal opponents stand in their way, those who had the potential a week back to seal their exit routes. However, Morgan’s boys are riding with the momentum now.
But let’s talk about what the triumph in Lord’s would this mean for this English side, who have been throttled by expectations.
Not that this would be the perfect World Cup victory and far from Australia’s and the Windies’, who ruthlessly ran through opponents in their heydays. And such was the belief of the people in England this time. Prior to the World Cup, they had tried several permutations and combinations.
Perhaps almost every combination reaped favourable outcomes until it was the time that they stop experimenting. However, they had a broad spectrum of options, all of whom were fulfilling their roles in a reasonably comfortable way, no matter the jumbling.
Now, England hit a significant roadblock. If they witnessed any of the changing trends in this landscape of limited-overs cricket since their World Cup exit, it was the tempo of scoring runs.
They concentrated their undivided preparation in remaining head and shoulders above any other side – so much so that they managed to breach the 400-run mark four times in 50-over cricket since the last competition.
However, underneath that, they seemed to have lost the art of subtlety, an equally essential ingredient to succeed in ODIs.
Not that in the last couple of successful outings those concerns faded away. However, with the return of Jason Roy, England rediscovered their mental edge required to win crunch games against formidable opposition. Make no mistake, in a couple of upcoming games, the Poms would potentially face the situation where it wouldn’t be wise to go hard.
England’s Jason Roy. (David Davies/PA via AP)
Yes, 27 years is all that took for England to make an appearance in the semi-finals again. But what will stand out if they achieve the pinnacle of one-day cricket is their ability to stick together despite the media outrage.
Sure, the defeats and the retaliation to the backlash seemed palpable enough that England would taste yet another failure. However, when the chips were down, Morgan’s men made sure to not bottle up in make or break games.
They’re up against the Australians at the semi-final at Edgbaston – Aaron Finch’s men, who rode themselves until the knockout stage in a breakneck journey.
Australia may have the upper hand, given their crushing victory at Lord’s, but their arch-rivals found the character out of nowhere to stay in the hunt.
The hosts are undefeated across all three formats at Edgbaston in the last ten games and will look to end Australia’s unbeaten run in 50-over World Cup semi-finals.
But this is Englishmen’s moment of grandeur, a chance to feel the pressure, to negate it, and prove to the world that their stunning renaissance had a higher purpose.
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