Trait of losing high-pressure matches

Ahead of the tournament, head coach Lewis had identified dealing with pressure moments as the key takeaway from the 2023 World Cup, only for England to succumb to West Indies as soon as they were put on the back foot.

“I don’t think it’s a pressure problem so to speak,” said Knight. “I think it’s something we’ve looked to be better at for sure. I think we do have quite a lot of young players, which is forgotten sometimes, and they’re still finding ways to deal with different pressures.

“Obviously last night was pretty brutal…and it’s something that myself and Jon have talked about pretty openly about wanting to be better at communicating under pressure and how to grow more leaders in the group.”

After the match yesterday, Lewis was critical of his side’s response to facing early pressure in the field.

“It’s not a reaction you want as a coach when you’re on the sidelines,” he said. “You could see a lot of the players starting to drift off, especially in their energy and the tempo we like to play at.”

Poor in the field

England had the second worst catch completion rate in the tournament, taking just 41 per cent of their chances. On Tuesday night, they dropped West Indies opener Qiana Joseph five times across her match-winning innings of 52.

Dubai Stadium is famous for its “ring of fire” style floodlights, with some players commenting that they make it more difficult to pick up the ball during night matches.

On whether the floodlights played a role in England’s poor catching, Knight said: “I’ve played at that ground before and it can be a little bit hard to field, but I’m not entirely sure. Sometimes when one goes down it can become contagious.

“It is not where we want to be and not where we should be. We’ve got some outstanding fielders in this group… Unfortunately it wasn’t a performance that’s representative of who we are as a team and how we want to play.”