Yet jacks

T20 World Cup: All-rounder Will Jacks believes England doesn’t need a “perfect game” to lift the 2026 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup title. Having sealed a semi-final berth with a thrilling last-over win over New Zealand in Colombo — his fourth Player-of-the-Match award of the tournament — Jacks made it clear that results, not perfection, were what mattered.

“We've won six out of seven games and we've qualified for a semi-final. At the end of the day, no one really cares (about the perfect game). We obviously want to play well in there, but we're not gutted that we haven't played the perfect game because we're winning. And that's T20 cricket, that's professional sport. It's also incredibly hard to do that.

“You're playing against a very strong side who have prepared as well as you, and they know what they're trying to do and they're also trying to play the perfect game. So the chances of that happening are very slim. What we've done well is, in the key moments, we've kept a calm and clear head and we've managed to negotiate those well.”