ICC World Cup T20: England's Chokers status debated

Every player reacts differently in such situations. Some can channelise it while others crumble individually and often as a team. In such a state, they tend to throw away matches they are expected to win.

In the past many years, this has been seen happening with teams like South Africa and India. 

But from the past few months, especially post T20 World Cup 2021, the England cricket team have looked to be underperforming in the T20Is. 

They were bowled out in the 2021 T20 World Cup's semifinals, after which they lost consecutive bilateral T20I series against West Indies, India and South Africa within ten months, irrespective of whether they played at home or away. And now they are behind in the seven-match series against Pakistan by 3-2. 

They are now left with five matches, two against Pakistan and three against Australia, to rectify their form before the 2022 T20 World Cup.

Probable reasons for their struggle in T20Is in 2022

England has played enough matches this year to know their errors and work on them. They have lost 14 T20Is that they have played this year. And interestingly, four of them have been lost by an exceeding margin of 50 runs, being outclassed by the opponents. Apart from this, they also suffered a 10-wicket loss from Pakistan while failing to defend a target of 200. 

Power Play worries- One of the most prominent reasons is that the squad has been tormented with many injury concerns. Like Jonny Bairstow getting ruled out to players like Jason Roy, Liam Livingstone, and Jos Buttler battling and recovering from their respective injuries. Missing these prominent players makes their power play highly fragile and susceptible to low run rate and fall of the wickets. 

Phil Salt and Alex Hales, who have been opening for England, have occasionally put up spirited performances. They looked highly susceptible against Pakistan being able to bring a 30-plus score only once in five matches till now. 

Fragile middle-order- Even their middle-order failed to back the team up in times of need. No one apart from Moeen Ali and Harry Brooks gave a consistent performance to help the team's performance accelerate in the middle order. This left plenty of jobs to be done by finishers in any chase game. 

Lack of front-running bowlers- Their pace department is also handicapped in the absence of experienced players like Chris Jordan, Tymal Mills, and Jofra Archer. Although the presence of Chris Woakes, Mark Wood, and Adil Rashid should have made up for the players not being present in the bilateral series, they still can't be entitled to be the frontrunners to lead the charge.