England all-rounder Will Jacks admitted that Nepal pushed England to the brink in their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Group C match at Wankhede, which England won by just four runs. Praising Nepal’s batting, bowling and fielding, Jacks said he was “very nervous” before Sam Curran defended the final over. He also lauded Curran’s composure under pressure and Liam Dawson’s impact.

Mumbai: England all-rounder Will Jacks stated that Nepal really pushed them to the brink with their excellent effort with the bat and ball which saw the English scraping through by a mere four runs in their ICC Men’s T20 World Cup Group C match, at the Wankhede Stadium, here on Sunday.

Jacks was addressing the media after the intense game at the Wankhede.

“What we aimed to do at the start of the game, obviously incredibly tight with the ball, absolutely outstanding in the field, running between the wickets, they pushed us right to the very end there. That's World Cup cricket, it's going to be tough, we saw every game yesterday, incredibly tight, multiple games could have gone either way. Same again today, so it's a good start to the tournament,” he added.

The off-spinner revealed that he was incredibly nervous before the last over was bowled by Sam Curran.

“Yeah, well I was nervous, very nervous, my heart was thumping out of the boundary. I had confidence in Sam, he's done that quite well. He's defended the last over quite a few times and credit to him, that was brilliant, where he nailed his yorkers and held his net.”

Jacks lavished praise on fast-bowling all-rounder Curran’s brilliant effort in the last over.

“Yeah, he's very fast when he's pressed in situations, he's able to think very clearly, he's got a very good understanding of the game, which he's shown obviously. He's played at the tournament and won the match in the World Cup finally, he's absolutely brilliant there in today's, he's won us again,” he added.

Jack also had words of praise for Liam Dawson, who had made his way back into the England side.

“Yeah, he's obviously someone who I think has been brilliant over the whole course of his career and playing out for him, and I think he's really cherishing that and really just enjoying every moment of it. He's incredibly talented in the skillset that he has.”

“It's quite unique, he's able to hit the stunts at incredibly high percentages and undercut the ball and predict what the baton is going to do. Even today, I think they got off to a great start, they played well and changed the pace of the game. He came in fourth, I think, and broke through the partnership and just slowed the game down for us,” he added.

When asked by one of the English journalists about what the conversation was that skipper Harry Brook had with the group at the drinks after 12 overs during Nepal’s chase, Jacks revealed it was about the duration of the game.

“We just spoke about there's a long time left to go in the game. Six overs, everything happens quite quickly in T20. Six overs is still a very long time. When one or two wickets fell and we were ahead of the game. After that, we obviously bowled two great overs. Sam and I can't remember who else was involved. Two very good overs and all of a sudden we were ahead. That's how quickly the game can change,” he added.

Jacks felt that winning a tight game such as this one against Nepal will keep England in good stead going ahead in the tournament.

“I think winning ugly is a great trait. A game like today, it's obviously incredibly difficult to replicate that experience that you get. A game like today where we potentially weren't expecting it to go down to the last ball that it has.

Hopefully when we get in that situation in the rest of the tournament, which we definitely will at some stage, we'll be able to look back on this experience today and take that with us. You need 15 players in the squad to win the World Cup, but everyone standing up at some stage is going to be important. And today was good for that,” he added.