England's Cricket World Cup 2019 hopes take major hit as Australia win at Lord's - Mirror Online

England continued their ICC Cricket World Cup 2019 campaign against their old enemy - but fell to defeat when chasing again

England's hopes of reaching the World Cup semi-finals were put on life support by their oldest and fiercest rivals on a dispiriting day at HQ.

Australia are the first to make those semis after dishing out an all too familiar World Cup hiding to Eoin Morgan's side who, far from bouncing back from defeat, curled up in a ball in the corner waiting for it to end.

The tournament hosts and pre tournament favourites are surely anything but following their 64-run loss that made you wonder whether the last four years was some kind of collective dream sequence.

For four years England have demolished sides with a swagger as their batting in particular has flexed muscle after muscle, and for the last 13 months they have been ranked No.1 in ODI cricket as a result.

In that time they have tried to convince themselves that they can handle the pressure and the expectation that comes with that rarified air.

But within the space of three and a half weeks and three World Cup defeats, that pressure appears to be choking them.

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