England survived a scare to qualify for the Super Eights at the T20 World Cup on Monday (Tuesday AEDT) as Italy’s swashbuckling chase of 203 fell agonisingly short in a pulsating match in Kolkata.
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Will Jacks scored the fastest T20 World Cup fifty for England as they made 202-7, their highest total of the tournament so far, and eventually won by 24 runs.
Italy, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, were on track to pull off a sensational upset when Grant Stewart and Jaspreet Singh blasted 21 off Adil Rashid’s final over, the 18th of the chase, including three sixes.
That left 30 needed off 12 balls, but it proved too much and Italy were all out off the last ball of the match for 178.
“We haven’t played our best cricket, but at the end of the day, we’ve made it through and we’re heading to Sri Lanka, so we can be happy about that,” said England captain Harry Brook.
Most of England’s batsmen got good starts after Brook won the toss and chose to bat.
But only Jacks capitalised as Italy kept chipping away with regular wickets. He reached his fifty off 21 balls to beat Eoin Morgan’s 25-ball effort against the West Indies in Kandy in 2012.
“It’s been a little bit of a trend so far in this competition,” said Brook. “We haven’t managed to string along the scores that we’d like to do as a batting unit, but that’s part of T20 cricket.
“It’s a fickle game. One day you can smack a hundred and the next day you can get out first ball.”
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Jacks took the game by the scruff of the neck after England stuttered to 105-5 in the 13th over.
He put on 54 in 25 balls with Sam Curran (25) for the sixth wicket and 35 in 16 balls with Jamie Overton (15) for the seventh.
His fourth six, which took him to his fifty, also saw England pass 200 for the first time in the tournament, with Jacks finishing 53 not out off 22 balls.
“We know we need to be a lot better. Simple as that,” said Jacks. “We’re going to Sri Lanka now, different conditions, new opposition. We’ve got a lot of stuff to work on and we’ll try our best.”
The win guaranteed England’s passage to the Super Eights along with the already-qualified West Indies from Group C, South Africa and India.
Italy got off to a terrible start in reply as Jofra Archer took two wickets in the first over.
Jos Buttler then pulled off one of the catches of the tournament. Italy captain Harry Manenti ramped Jamie Overton only for keeper Buttler to leap and take a stunning one-handed grab at full stretch.
Italy rebuilt brilliantly from 22-3, with Ben Manenti racing to 60 off 25 balls before he was caught by Tom Banton at long-on off Jacks.
Manenti smashed six sixes and four fours in a stand of 92 with Justin Mosca for the fourth wicket.
When Mosca was caught in the deep by Banton off Rashid to make it 135-5 in the 15th over, it seemed Italy’s hopes of pulling off only the third successful 200-plus chase in the history of the T20 World Cup might be over.
But Stewart had other ideas, blasting 45 off 23 balls to keep Italy in the hunt.
“We probably let them get a few too many which hurt us in the chase,” said Italy captain Harry Manenti.
“That was some impressive hitting,” he added about his brother Ben’s innings. “And if you see that towards the back end, Grant Stewart did the same thing when he came out.”
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