NASSER HUSSAIN: England were outplayed in their humiliating T20 World Cup defeat to Ireland

Alarm bells should have ringed for England at halftime on Wednesday when I interviewed Mark Wood as he felt there was a lot more on the pitch than they found.

Wood was very honest in his assessment, believing England to be poor and lacking in intensity. And for the record, I thought they fell short and didn’t adapt to the change of location and opposition.

On a bouncy castle the size of Perth Stadium, it was fair enough to bowl short in Afghanistan, but they seemed to have the same plan for Ireland at the MCG, while England needed to throw the ball up a bit more.

A test match length around the top of the off-stump would have been ideal, but England not only bowled too short, they bowled on both sides of the wicket and didn’t get their lines or their lengths right.

England dragged it back well in the bottom of the Irish innings and I thought Liam Livingstone and Wood themselves were excellent. But from the way England batted on this field, it turned out that 157 was quite an Irish total.

Dawid Malan is usually good on these kinds of surfaces, but he had no rhythm all Wednesday and looking back on the game in Afghanistan you can say that not many English batters timed the ball in either game.

I also thought that Moeen Ali at six was a bit low. He was about to strike and seemed to have picked the perfect moment to attack Gareth Delany’s spider, hitting him six, two, four of the first three balls from the over before going away for rain. After that, he was denied the chance to get England for the DLS par score.

But the umpires’ decision was right. I commented on the game between South Africa and Zimbabwe in Hobart which was also decided by rain and most importantly the umpires are fair to both sides.

The players started slipping on Wednesday when the umpires decided to step down and five minutes later it was absolutely pouring so England can have no real complaints.

You have to give Ireland credit. They played brilliantly and deserved this win. The only thing they’ll have to work on is their catch though, as those two drops could have been extremely expensive if five minutes were left of the game.

It wasn’t just in this game either. They dropped a few in qualifying for the Super 12s and on these big grounds it will cost them unless they get sharper along the way.

But the way they pitched in those first 10 overs was the deciding factor and that leaves England vulnerable. I said before the tournament that you can’t afford a single mistake in such a short, sharp World Cup and it remains to be seen how expensive this mistake will be.

A week is long in a T20 World Cup. After New Zealand beat Australia and England beat Afghanistan, it was all about England getting the chance to take Australia out of their own tournament here on Friday.

That may still be the case, but a defeat for England on what will likely be a similar field in similar circumstances will almost certainly eliminate them as well. It’s a virtual knockout game and that’s the nature of this tournament.

I still think England is a very good side. It’s just that they’ve put themselves under pressure now and in front of a large Australian audience on Friday they’re going to have to deal with that. They have some Australians in their dressing room in coaches Mike Hussey and David Sakar. They should help them assess the circumstances and do it right next time.