England fall to dismal defeat against Australia in Barbados, with Jos Buttler’s side facing nightmare possibility of failing to qualify for Super Eights at T20 World Cup

Two games into their World Cup defense and England face the nightmare scenario of failing to qualify for the Super Eights after a dismal 36-point defeat to Australia at Kensington Oval.

While nothing could be done about Tuesday’s rainy day against Scotland, their performance here fluctuated between the headless, the hapless and the hopeless. It leaves them with the need to beat both Oman and Namibia in Antigua, and pray that the Scots’ net run-rate does not exceed theirs. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up.

Rob Key, the ECB’s director of men’s cricket, flies home on Sunday but could quickly return to the Caribbean if England pull out before what should have been the start of the serious business.

If that happens, it is unthinkable that head coach Matthew Mott will remain in his position. Jos Buttler will also struggle to stay in office after a display that made a mockery of the small fortune England have spent on his huge backroom entourage.

Much has been made of the temporary signing of Kieron Pollard, the Barbadian former West Indies captain whose local knowledge has become the latest pillar on which Mott and Buttler can lean.

Captain Jos Buttler will struggle to stay in office after such a poor performance in Barbados

You didn’t have to be born in Bridgetown to know which way the wind was blowing, yet England repeatedly invited Australia’s big players to take advantage of the smaller border. The result was 13 sixes, 10 of which were with wind assistance, for a total of 201 for seven, the highest in the World Cup.

Despite an opening stand of 73 in seven overs between Buttler and Phil Salt, both of whom fell to Adam Zampa’s leg spin, Australia bowled with much more knowledge and skill to restrict England’s six to eight, three of which were hit in one over by Moeen Ali by Glenn Maxwell.

Will Jacks never got going and the second half of England’s innings was an agonizing watch. Jonny Bairstow, slow in the field, scrambled around for seven off 13 balls, and Ben Duckett should be in contention for Thursday’s match against Oman, not least because England are short of left-handers.

The competitive tension was long gone before Moeen cut Pat Cummins to cover. Australia could hardly have celebrated victory over its old enemy with so little enthusiasm.

“We were outplayed,” Buttler said. ‘They fully deserved their victory today. There are a few things we need to clean up. We have to be confident, keep our heads up and our chests out.” And the rest.

Jos Buttler and Phil Salt both fell to Adam Zampa’s leg spin as Australia bowled with more nous

Jonny Bairstow (right), slow in the field, scrambled around for seven off thirteen balls

England had started deceptively tidy with the ball after Buttler won the toss, when Moeen – who turned his off-breaks against left-handers Travis Head and David Warner – conceded just three from the first over.

But this is not the first time that the team’s think tank has outsmarted itself. Instead of hitting Australia with off-spin on one side and raw pace on the other, Buttler threw the ball to Jacks, who had sent down just two overs in 14 previous T20 internationals.

Worse, its serpentine off-breaks begged to be hit by the wind all the way to the shortest of the square boundaries. Head duly clipped his first two balls for six, Warner added another, and the over cost 22. It could well have been the last Jacks bowls of the entire tournament, and the momentum of the game changed in an instant.

And if one of the off-spinners was going to bowl on the toughest side, surely it had to be the much more experienced Moeen? Buttler described the decision to bowl Jacks as a ‘gut feeling’.

Jofra Archer restored some calm with a score of over eight, before Warner – in possibly his last battle with England before his international retirement – assisted Mark Wood’s first two balls into and over the Greenidge & Haynes Stand.

Pat Cummins and Mitchell Marsh celebrate after taking the wicket of England’s Moeen Ali

Will Jacks never got going and the second half of England’s innings was an agonizing wait

The Bajan dialect may be lost on foreign ears, but England’s body language needed no interpretation: hands on hips, heads bowed, they looked anything but defending champions.

By the time Warner was bowled by Moeen for a 16-ball 39, Australia had made an eye-watering 70 inside five overs. It was all quite Death in Paradise.

The surface already looked like it could reward cutters and slower balls, calling into question Reece Topley’s continued omission. And when a fired-up Archer read the room, picked up the pace to bowl Head for 34 off 18 and picked up his first wicket on his home ground, England had briefly stemmed the flow.

But Buttler’s side never abandoned the feeling of overtaking their own expectations. Apart from Archer and the underused Liam Livingstone, who tripped Mitchell Marsh for 35 at Buttler’s second try, the attack looked clearly targetable.

Two wickets for Chris Jordan made him the second bowler, after Adil Rashid, to collect 100 in T20 internationals, cheering on a decent crowd in which locals were barracking for England – no doubt influenced by the presence of the in Barbados born Jordan and Sagittarius.

Two wickets for Chris Jordan made him the second bowler to collect 100 in T20 internationals

Yet England had never chased more than 158 to beat Australia, and remained a team with little self-confidence and plenty of nervous tension after the fiasco of their 50-plus title defense in India.

They may still emerge from the group stage and begin an unlikely path to glory. But they will have to turn things around quickly and hope Scotland, who play Oman on Sunday, remain within reach. If there is a more desperate blueprint for winning a World Cup, it was hard to imagine one last night in Bridgetown.