T20 World Cup 2026: Harry Brook says England underestimated opponents in group stage

England captain Harry Brook on Saturday admitted underestimating some teams in its group and promised to dish out stronger performances in the Super Eights stage in T20 World Cup 2026.

England, the two-time champion of the tournament, has been far from convincing thus far. It nearly lost to lowly Nepal before scraping to a four-run win, suffered a comprehensive 30-run defeat to former champion West Indies, and beat Scotland and Italy to reach the Super Eights.

It faces co-host Sri Lanka in its first match of the stage at the Pallekele International Cricket Stadium today (22).

“It was obviously a niggly start to the competition. We probably underestimated a few of the sides, and they put up a really good fight and yeah, look, we came here to get through that stage, and thankfully we have, so we’re here in the Super Eights, and that’s our main focus now,” Brook said during the pre-match press conference.

Brook also conceded that his side had been “slightly too careful with the bat” in the group games and indicated that it would look to be more aggressive going forward.

“We’ve been slightly too careful with the bat. We can probably be a bit more brave in certain situations and have more faith in the guys behind us to be able to go out there and put a decent score on as well,” he said.

Talking about the Sri Lankan team, he said, “I’ve learned that you can’t take any team for granted, as we’ve seen in the group stages. We’ve managed to sneak through in a couple of games. Some of their batters are batting really well. So hopefully we can get a few wickets in the power play.”

Asked if batting all-rounder Jacob Bethell is fit to bowl, Brook said, “Not sure yet... he’s got a decent cut in his finger. So he’d have to have strapping on his finger, but if there’s some way we can get around that, then we’d like to bowl hi,m but at the minute I don’t think it’s possible.”

Source: Sportstar 
--Agencies