Charlotte Edwards backs England’s ‘bottle’ before Pakistan World T20 tie

Charlotte Edwards is confident that a return to Chennai’s conditions will benefit England as they look to secure a World Twenty20 semi-final place with victory over Pakistan on Sunday.
England’s batting wobbled twice on slow pitches in Dharamsala as they ground out nervous wins against India and West Indies, but their captain hopes playing in Chennai, where they played and won three warm-up matches, will lift their performance.

England’s wins over Bangladesh, India and West Indies in Dharamsala have put them two points clear at the top of Group B, but they still need to beat Pakistan (from 3pm BST) to secure progress. “We were looking forward to coming back to Chennai,” she said. “We know the conditions and we have played under lights here. We feel we are as fully prepared as we can be and are looking forward to tomorrow night.”

England lost seven wickets for 45 runs in chasing 91 to beat India and reached a target of 109 from the last ball with nine down against West Indies. Despite accepting England need to improve with the bat, Edwards stressed the positives.

“You have got to take the game in isolation because Dharamsala was a completely different wicket to what we are going to face here,” she said.

“Obviously there are things we can take from the collapses, but ultimately we have won two games. We are not going to dissect the games and think we should have done this, we should have done that. We won the game and have shown a lot of bottle, which is important, over the last two games as well.”

Having lost by four runs to West Indies in their first match, Pakistan have since beaten India and Bangladesh. “Their main strength is their bowling,” she said. “They have got some good bowlers, including their spinners, led very well by Sana Mir.”