ENG vs NED: Moeen Ali Throws His Opinion On England's Poor World Cup Performance, Opines 'It's End Of An Era'

England’s all-rounder Moeen Ali feels that England’s early exit from the ICC Cricket World Cup 2023 is the end of an era in 50-overs cricket. The defending champions only got one win in seven matches this year and Moeen Ali was humble enough to acknowledge that they haven’t been good enough.

England were handed their sixth defeat in seven matches by Australia in Ahmedabad on Saturday. It officially ended their already narrow chances of qualifying for the semi-finals and left them at the bottom of the 10-team standings with a risk of not being able to qualify for the ICC Champions Trophy 2025.

The defending champions, under the leadership of Jos Buttler, had a struggling start to their campaign, facing defeat against New Zealand in Ahmedabad. After that, they defeated Bangladesh pretty convincingly and it was looking like this team might still be strong enough to come back from their misery but after that, they are yet to win a single match

When asked if it was the end of a great 50-over team, the 36-year-old all-rounder Moeen Ali replied: “Yeah, maybe.” The biggest cause for England’s horrible campaign was their batting. It collapsed repeatedly, including against Australia on the other day. They were bowled out for 156 vs Sri Lanka, 129 against hosts India, 215 in the upset of the tournament by Afghanistan, and fell short again while chasing Australia’s 286.

England’s Batting Is The Reason For Their Failure

“It’s just lack of confidence, especially in the batting department. The lack of runs, especially in a part of the world, where in India it can be nice to bat but it can be difficult, it’s probably a different approach, but we haven’t been good enough,” said Moeen.

On the other hand, the Chris Woakes-led bowling attack restricted Australia to 286 and contained India to 229/9, but England’s batters failed to capitalize every time which led to England’s defeat and Chris Woakes’ effort went in vain.

“The bowling has got better over the last two games in particular, but no positives really, we are bottom of the table with two points in a World Cup in which we expected to do better,” said Moeen.

Moeen Ali talked about the future recalling the 2015 World Cup where the Eoin Morgan-led England team was eliminated from the group stage by Bangladesh. They rebuilt themselves and won the 50-over World Cup in 2019 and the 20-over World Cup in 2022.

“I look at it as an exciting time going forward because there are so many good players, we know they are coming. Anything could happen there are still another four years before the next World Cup. Like 2015, we were terrible in the World Cup and we started again, almost started fresh and it can be exciting going forward,” Moeen said.

Many of the current stars in England’s squad are unlikely to feature in the 2027 World Cup which will be jointly hosted by South Africa, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Players like Jos Buttler (33), Ben Stokes (32) Dawid Malan (36), and Joe Root (32) might not be available for the 2027 World Cup but rising stars such as Harry Brook, Sam Curran, etc. offer hope for resurrection.