We were good without being great: Mott on England's T20 WC campaign

Less than two years ago, England celebrated their second T20 World Cup title — their first of the Matthew Mott-Jos Buttler era. However, they have been way under par in the 2023 World Cup and have now crashed out at the semi-final stage after India handed them a thrashing.

While saying that he and Buttler are the right men to lead England forward, head coach Mott still believes his team was good in the T20 World Cup but not great.

“I think Jos and I as a partnership we’ve been galvanised in the last six months, and you learn more about leadership in times of adversity," Mott said, as quoted by The Guardian.

“If you asked around the dressing room, we’ve got a lot of people in the support staff that have given credit to the leadership group for the way we’ve stuck together in tricky circumstances. So, sometimes, it’s not all about results.

“I think we were good without being great. As a tournament as a whole, given some of the adversity we faced, I was absolutely pumped with Jos’s leadership throughout. I thought he was amazing just to stay so level.”

With the Champions Trophy next year and the T20 World Cup in 2026, we may not see many senior England players in action anymore in both or at least in one of those two tournaments. However, Mott says that there has been no discussions on that front.

Moeen Ali, 37, Jonny Bairstow, 34, Chris Jordan, 35, and Adil Rashid, 36, are approaching the end of their careers, and it will not be surprising that a call on their future is taken in the next couple of years.

“We’ve got a pretty good mixture at the moment. You never know. Always after World Cups you have time for reflection. We’ll lick our wounds in the next week or two and then I’m sure we’ll get back planning, we’ve got a series against Australia in September," Mott said.

“But there’s been no discussions about that. Actually, we’ve done well in concentrating exactly on what’s on here, and every team we come up against, we try and give our full attention. So we’ll take that time to reflect when we get back and then hopefully come back bigger, badder and better.”

England turn their attention to the upcoming Test series agianst West Indies at home, starting July 10 at Lord's, which will be followed by a three-match Test series against Sri Lanka from August 21.

Mott and Buttler will be back in action when Australia visit their shores for three T20Is and five ODIs in September.

If you’ve not downloaded the Cricket.com app yet, you’re missing out — big time. Play Fantasy on Cricket.com NOW! Download the App here.