England Admit Need for Improvement Following Narrow Escape Against Italy

England won a nail-biting contest against Italy, thanks to Sam Curran and Will Jacks, who gave decisive performances for the team in both innings. However, this victory has taught England a tough lesson that they need to improve significantly to move ahead in the ICC T20 World Cup 2026.

"We know we need to be a lot better, simple as that." said Will Jacks while accepting the Player of the Match award.

Sam Curran, who took three wickets in the second innings, also said that he was a bit nervous today because England’s record against associate teams hasn't been great.

"I was nervous today. You've got to be nervous coming into these tournaments. I had a joke with Morgs [Eoin Morgan] before the toss. He said these are the hardest ones to get through, because I don't think England have a great record against the smaller nations." said Sam Curran.

"I guess we've got a job done. We can laugh about it, but there's a lot we can get better at." added Sam Curran.

He then said that England were ‘fractionally tentative’ in the last few games, which is why they are struggling to dominate even weaker oppositions in the ICC T20 World Cup 2026.

"I guess it was a little bit of a risk, choosing to bat. We felt like we were fractionally tentative with the bat in the last few games, and we almost thought, 'why don't we go out with that positive mindset, and try and put a big score on the board and take them down like that?'” said Sam Curran.

Curran then applauded the performance of Italy, saying they bowled pretty well in the first innings to keep the pressure on England.

“But Italy put in a fantastic performance, had us 100 for 5, and myself and Jacksy had to regroup and go away from what we had planned a little bit." added Sam Curran.