As Australia and England get ready to lock horns in the semi-final of the ongoing ICC Men's Cricket World Cup, pacer Liam Plunkett on Tuesday said that the match against Australia will be the biggest game of his career.
"This journey we've been on with this group of boys now comes down to this semi-final. It would be nice to finish this four-year cycle by winning the World Cup. Playing for your country is massive and if you can go ahead and win this game and win the final, it's huge for English cricket. I don't think I'll play another World Cup, so individually I think it is the biggest game of my career," ESPN Cricinfo quoted Plunkett as saying.
Plunkett praised the Australian team saying the side has some great players but added England are a different kind of mal and they can beat anyone on their day.
"Australia are a great team. They have great players and they have experience. They've been there and done it before. But we're a different sort of mal compared to our last team. And we feel on our day if we play some good cricket we can beat anyone in the world," Plunkett said.
The 34-year-old Plunkett made his international debut in 2005 and went on to play his first World Cup match in 2007. The player said that the team now has a balanced squad which can go all the way to lift the World Cup.
"For me, being involved in England squads of the past, I never expected to win a World Cup," Plunkett said. "We had amazing players but I never thought we'd win it. I played in teams where you didn't expect to win and the public didn't expect you to win," Plunkett said.
"But with this squad the public sort of expect us to win games and series now. We've played well over the last four years, we've been ranked No. 1 and we're feeling in a good place. We've made cricket exciting again and we've got people watching it," he added.
In the group stage, Australia defeated England by 64 runs at Lord's Cricket Ground. The pacer said that the loss occurred as the side went into their shell. He added that England would come out all guns blazing in the semi-final.
"We went away from playing our style of cricket. We like to be positive but not reckless and we went away from our positive brand of cricket and went into our shell a little bit. We know we're better than that. We want to attack in a positive way without being reckless and I think that's how we've been for the last however many years," Plunkett said.
"When we have been beaten in the past, we've not taken it lightly but we have put a line under it and gone on to the next game. But after getting beaten by Pakistan and Sri Lanka we dwelt on it a little bit rather than just forgetting about it and moving on. We can improve that by playing our positive brand of cricket," he added.
England finished the group stages at the fourth position with 11 points from nine games whereas Australia ended up at the second spot with 14 points from nine matches.
The Eoin Morgan-led side takes on Australia in the semi-final on July 11 in Headingley.
( With inputs from ANI )
