Cricket World Cup 2019: England's Chris Woakes reveals the dressing room chat that helped spark India win
A 31-run victory over the previously unbeaten India at Edgbaston keeps the fate of Eoin Morgan's side firmly in their own hands with a win over New Zealand on Wednesday now enough to seal progression to the semi-finals
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Your support makes all the difference.Chris Woakes has revealed the talk inside the England dressing room that helped spark their World Cup.
Back-to-back defeats to Sri Lanka and Australia left the hosts in real danger of an early exit from their own tournament.
But a 31-run victory over the previously unbeaten India at Edgbaston keeps the fate of Eoin Morgan's side firmly in their own hands with a win over New Zealand on Wednesday now enough to seal progression to the semi-finals.
Woakes, who took two wickets and a stunning boundary catch to help halt India's charge in reply, reveals that the team never forgot the processes that made them the No 1 one-day side in the world.
“We sat down as a team and spoke about where we’ve got to has been playing like we have and the brand of cricket we play and what this team can do. That's the path we’ve gone down over the last four years," he said.
"We just reminded everyone that two losses doesn’t make you a bad team overnight and to try and re-assess the process that wins us games of cricket.
"Games of international cricket are hard things to win and we just reminded ourselves of the good stuff we’ve done and the good stuff we can still do even though we’d lost a couple of games."
The win at Edgbaston has England back on a high with suggestions, in some quarters at least, that the team are now peaking at the right time.
“I don’t think it was ever the aim but I hope so," Woakes said when asked whether this was always part of the plan.
"I hope we can use the two defeats we’ve had. We don’t need more motivation but to get us in the right head space to move forward and win two crucial games.
"We’ve won one of them. Hopefully we can win that second one against New Zealand. They will be hungry as well.
"We know they are a good side, they’ve had a good tournament and can turn anyone over on their day so we won’t be taking them lightly.
"We know we have to turn up in Durham and put in another performance like we did on Sunday.”
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