<\/p>\n
A<\/span>fter four wins in five games, and now just one away from sealing a place in the semi\u2011finals, it is hard to describe England\u2019s progress through the World Cup as ugly. But\u00a0it hasn\u2019t been straightforward. Like an inverted swan, everyone can see them struggling \u2013 yet somehow their progress has been, up to this point, serene.<\/p>\n There are no bonus points available for artistic merit and to win tournaments it is necessary only to be, at each stage, slightly better than your opponents. Australia\u2019s T20 champions of 2021, for example, were a side few considered the best in that competition \u2013 and were notably annihilated by England<\/a> in the group stages \u2013 until Aaron Finch raised the trophy in Dubai.<\/p>\n Harry Brook continues to promise imminent liftoff. \u201cLook, we still haven\u2019t had that perfect game,\u201d he said after the victory against Sri Lanka<\/a> on Sunday. \u201cWith the bat we haven\u2019t managed to get the big scores that we\u2019d like and everybody likes watching. But I think that\u2019s quite an exciting prospect. In my eyes, I see that as something coming very soon.\u201d<\/p>\n But not, perhaps, imminently. The game against Pakistan on Tuesday promises to be another awkward one, given England\u2019s struggles against spin and their opponents\u2019 abundance of spinners.<\/p>\n Pakistan have bowled only 16.5 overs of seam in the tournament, fewer by far than any other team. So far in this tournament 78.2% of all the deliveries bowled by Pakistan have come from their spinners. Against India<\/a> they bowled 17 consecutive overs of spin and that number hit 90%. They could well be plotting something similar in a high-stakes game against England. Defeat, after their first Super\u00a08s fixture was rained off, would leave them on the brink of elimination.<\/p>\n \u201cThey struggled against the spinners,\u201d Pakistan\u2019s Sahibzada Farhan said of England\u2019s performance against Sri Lanka. \u201cWe have some of the best spinners, so I am confident that we will give them a tough time. Morale is very high and we are fully confident.\u201d<\/p>\n Evidently, England\u2019s weakness against spin has not gone unnoticed and no team in this World Cup has faced as much of it. If the bald statistics do not suggest that they are completely hapless \u2013 59.6% of the deliveries they have faced have been delivered by spinners, bringing an almost perfectly matching 59.4% of\u00a0their wickets and 58% of their runs \u2013 their discomfort has been evident in the flesh.<\/p>\n So far Jacob Bethell has been dismissed only by spinners, while Brook has lost his wicket to spin in four games out of five. In England\u2019s one defeat, against West Indies<\/a> in Mumbai, he meekly prodded the ball back into the hands of Gudakesh Motie and afterwards said he would \u201cmuch rather get caught on the boundary than the way I did today\u201d. But Brook\u2019s dismissals have continued to be characterised by timidity, including against Sri\u00a0Lanka, when he was trapped lbw by Dunith Wellalage while trying to fend the ball to the leg-side.<\/p>\n