Cricket World Cup 2023: Fearless England face a big test against India

All eyes will be on England to see how they go about defending their title which they won four years ago at Lord's in a dramatic final, beating the Kiwis on boundary count.

England had started the 2019 World Cup as favourites at home because of the way they had changed their style of game, playing fearless and aggressive cricket.

After the early exist in the 2015 World Cup, Andrew Strauss the England director, and captain Eoin Morgan built a team which changed the face of ODI cricket.

From 2015 to 2019 England scored 24 plus scores of 300 and above and five scores of 400 plus, the highest being 481 against Australia.

They had openers like Jonny Bairstow and Jason Roy who would go berserk from ball one and set the platform for the rest like Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Morgan, Jos Buttler and Moeen Ali.

What made them superior to the rest was that they had batting until number 9 and maintained a run rate of 6.29 per over in ODIs they played after 2015.

They created a template which other teams found difficult to cope with and won almost every series playing the same brand of cricket.

Four years after their first ODI World Cup win, they have a new captain in Buttler who is the most devastating white-ball batsman in the world.

India will be their biggest challenge for England as they bid to defend their title.