The ODI World cup is the grandest event in the gentlemen's game. The nations playing the game take immense pride in playing the World Cup. They play for their glory. The history of game has witnessed nations crowned as world champions. While one agrees to the fact that becoming world champions takes lot of effort and is a difficult thing to do, teams and fans won't deny the fact that it is infact even more difficult to defend their title in the upcoming editions of the tournament.

The game has had a history of some nations dominating the tournament thereby becoming world champions, to be called as favourites for the edition which followed. And rightly so, the teams have displayed their prowess by not degrading their quality of cricket, even if they do not manage to defend the title. West Indies, India, Australia are few nations who have done it, and few of them continue to do so. However, that's not always the case. Srilanka, who won the World Cup in 1996 struggled to make their way in quarter finals of 1999 world cup. And quite similar is now the case with England, who are unable to play the level of cricket they usually do.

The defending world champions and current T20 champions, are finding it extremely hard to play competitive game, let alone defend the title. The team which won the World Cup back in 2019 in the most thrilling matches, was clearly called as favourites for the tournament. What further supported their case was their dominant performances from the past few months. Be it red ball cricket, or white ball game, the English team played fiercely to win. Most of their players have been in terrific form from the past few months. They had ticked all the boxes before coming into the world cup. Infact, they got their world cup winner Ben Stokes out of the retirement only for this particular tournament.

And in spite of all these, somehow they have managed to surprise the world with their performance. As any associate team's good performance is a matter of surprise for the fans, so is the poor performance of established test playing nations. And that's exactly what has happened with England. The inventor of the game, the oldest playing nation and the mastermind of ODI World Cup- The England and Wales Cricket Team have put on a series of extremely poor performances. Nothing has gone good for them till now, as the defending champions are reeling back with 4 humiliating losses, amongst the 5 games they have played.

The team which entered the tournament as favourites, suffered the first loss right in the opener. The Blackcaps avenged their 2019 world cup defeat by chasing 283 with 9 wickets to spare. They did bounce back against Bangladesh, but were defeated by Afghanistan resulting in an upset in the match that followed. If the Afghan victory was not enough, the English got thrashed by South Africa, who defeated the former by a mammoth 229 runs. And if all these weren't enough, Sri Lanka rubbed salt on English wounds, by defeating them today. What's staggering us the fact that this encounter happened at Chinnaswamy stadium in Bengaluru, known for its batting. And the team which boasts hard hitters like Butler, Bairstow, Stokes, Livingstone could only make 156 runs on the wicket which is a heaven for batters.

In a nutshell, the mighty English have fallen. They failed brutally to live up to the expectations of cricketing world. But what are reasons for their defeat? The primary reason is the over confidence of the team, which haunts them now. The hype created around the team before the tournament was way too higher. And owing to this hype came a feeling of accomplishment in the team, when they were yet to play a single game here in the event. And their false sense which prevailed within them, cost them heavily. The hype, the form of their players and their IPL experience led them to falsely think that they are prepared for the tournament in India, which clearly wasn't the case.

The over confidence also resulted in under preparation. While on one side the other teams were playing in subcontinent conditions, the English team was busy playing in their own backyard with Ireland. They chose to play in far different conditions, against a lower ranked team till 26th September, when their first world cup warm-up match was on 30th September. They didn't give a chance for their players to acclimatize well in the October heat which had to follow. The result of which was evident when Bairstow complained that few of the players fell sick as soon as they played warm up games. If the oldest cricket playing nation and their board plans as poorly as they did, the performance from their team surely won't be up to the mark.

And if all these factors aren't enough to degrade the team's morale, the permanent nature of English players to whine about things instead of accepting their own faults just worsens their case. The team has performed poorly in all the departments. And when asked about the reason for poor performance, Joe Root, one of the finest players gives the reason to be India's air quality and pollution which is taking a toll on their lungs. Interestingly enough, the same players don't have any issue to play 2 months in extreme heat in India for the IPL. Not quite surprising though, the team had no issues initially, and now complains about pollution after they are on a losing streak. If a team finds a way to give reasons, instead of accepting their on field mistakes and finding solutions to it, the team will never progress.

And as a cumulative result of all these, undoubtedly the defending champions England, have to be called as the worst defending champions of the history of ODI World Cups. Surely all these factors mentioned above have cost them, but most importantly it is their inability to cope up with all these which eventually ends in disappointment for them. The team is hardly showing any intent to fight. And honestly, it is disappointing to see as a cricket fan. The team is still not out of the race, however they need to win all their games going ahead, and need to hope that others lose some. But if they continue to give excuses for their defeat, instead of finding solutions, they will not fetch the results they desire.