“Realistically, we're in bit of trouble, for sure” - England head coach Matthew Mott after crushing loss to Sri Lanka in 2023 World Cup 

England head coach Matthew Mott has conceded that while the defending champions still have a mathematical possibility of reaching the semi-finals of the 2023 World Cup, realistically they are all but down and out. Mott made the admission after England succumbed to an eight-wicket loss against Sri Lanka at the M. Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru on Thursday.

Batting first after winning the toss, England crumbled to 156 all out in 33.2 overs, with not a single batter scoring a half-century. The Lankans then cruised to victory in 25.4 overs. Following their fourth loss in five games, England slipped to ninth position in the 2023 World Cup points table.

Speaking to Sky Sports after yet another disappointing performance from the defending champions, head coach Mott admitted things are looking very gloomy for England.

“Mathematically, we'd have to have a lot of things go our way, As I said leading up today, we could control it from there, but it certainly hasn't done our net run-rate any help at all and, depending on others... we'll keep fronting, we'll keep treating each game in isolation and try and salvage some really good stuff out the back end of this. But realistically, we're in bit of trouble, for sure," he said.

The 50-year-old also candidly agreed that Jos Buttler and company won’t find it easy to lift themselves from the position they find themselves in.

"It's going to be a very somber dressing room tonight. We came here full of hope and hoping to turn things around and we were well off the mark and it's going to be a real test of character to get through the next few weeks and make sure that we can salvage something out of this campaign," Mott commented.

Before the loss to Sri Lanka, England had gone down to New Zealand, Afghanistan and South Africa. Their only triumph came in the game against Bangladesh in Dharamsala.

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“Everyone's going to come from the hills to dissect what we've done wrong” - Mott

Following the massive loss to South Africa, England made multiple changes for the game against Sri Lanka on Thursday - Chris Woakes, Moeen Ali, and Liam Livingstone coming in. Mott, however, downplayed the changes, stating that they picked the XI according to conditions.

"We always reserve the right to pick players for different conditions. We admitted last time we probably got the balance wrong and so therefore we went back to the same balance that we've had before and look, when you when you lose by that margin, I don't think it's about a couple of small selections here and there,” he said.

The head coach added that each and every member of the team needs to take responsibility for the poor performance in England’s 2023 World Cup campaign.

"I think it's a collective and we've all got to take responsibility for the sub-par effort in this campaign, and everyone's going to come from the hills to dissect what we've done wrong but we'll make sure we find some positives…,” Mott stated.

England’s next 2023 World Cup match will be against India in Lucknow on Sunday.