Darren Gough reflects on 'crushing' England defeat in latest cricket blog

With the ICC Champions Trophy having kicked off on February 19, Ladbrokes shares its second blog from its new ambassador, Darren Gough.

What an interesting start we've had to the Champions Trophy; New Zealand looked really strong in their opening victory, as did India and South Africa. The game against Australia was always going to be a big one for England, and Australia looked a little bit nervous, I thought, going into the game.

They won the toss and were probably a little bit worried about missing their main bowlers, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc. 

England managed what I thought was a really good score; you've got to be able to defend that 351. Ben Duckett managed the highest individual Champions Trophy score with 165 runs from 143 deliveries, which was just magnificent.

Joe Root did what Joe Root does... 68 from 78. No one really backed them up, but 351 should have been a defendable score.

I've said from the start, the balance and confidence in this England side just doesn't look right, and Australia coasted it, really. Yes, we took some early wickets; you know, you get rid of Steve Smith and you get rid of Travis Head and you're thinking one more wicket would have been fantastic, and would have put us in an even stronger position.

But they allowed that partnership of Josh Inglis and Alex Carey to develop, and it went on the be the match-winning partnership. Archer dropped Carey when Australia still would have needed just over 100 from 12 overs, and England still had a chance at that point. But 120 from 85 deliveries was just awesome from Inglis.

It means there's a lot of thinking for England to do, after that defeat... there really, really is. It's going to crush them mentally, and they've got to somehow come back. They've got to get the game plan right; it didn't work on Saturday, with Mark Wood, Jofra Archer and Brydon Carse in the lineup.

Adil Rashid bowled well, Liam Livingstone did a good job, as did Root. But the three seamers went for pace and fire, and didn't deliver. Next up is going to be a huge, huge game for England, against Afghanistan on Wednesday.

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