It could be a momentous summer for England’s cricket and football teams as they look to deliver tournament success.
England start their bid to retain cricket’s T20 World Cup against Scotland in Barbados, while England’s footballers are preparing for the Euros with their opening fixture against Serbia on June 16th in Germany.
3
England’s T20 cricketers are firing and in form and the Three Lions football stars are the bookies’ favourite to win their first men’s major tournament since 1966.
Former England cricket great, Harmison is confident both teams can achieve greatness in the sporting summer of 2024 and told talkSPORT: “It would be brilliant if England start to get to the latter stages of the T20 World Cup and England breeze through the group stage of the Euros.
“If the sun comes out and both England teams are doing well, as a country we do love hanging our hopes and prayers and we sing from the rooftops and make up songs that we’re going to be the best team in the world and the majority of the time we get let down.
“Hopefully, this time both Gareth Southgate and Matthew Mott have got a great chance of making a memorable summer for everybody. Fingers crossed both teams can lift trophies. That would be brilliant for grassroots sport, for kids football and cricket. I think it would be amazing, the knock on effect would be huge and that’s what we want.”
Read more on T20 World Cup
Harmison is confident fast bowler Jofra Archer can inspire England following his return from injury and is also backing Jonny Bairstow to bounce back and deliver crucial runs on the big stage.
He explained: “I have got full confidence that Bairstow will go out, stick his chest out and score runs for England. We all know Bairstow will get nothing against Oman, Scotland and Namibia and then get 100 against Australia – that’s Jonny Bairstow. That’s what he does, a big time player on big occasions and he’s done it for years.
“Jofra Archer is our Jasprit Bumrah, Pat Cummins and Kagiso Rabada – he is our world-class bowler. And then you’ve got the likes of Mark Wood that will feed off him because of the pace he bowls at.
“Chris Jordan looked in really good order the other night. I was pleasantly surprised by Jordan, he’s got that yard of pace back and his skill sets have always been there. He was clocking in excess of 88 mph and that’s a big game changer.
3
“Along with Wood and Archer, he can save England five to 10 runs at the end of a game in the last two overs from one end because of how good he is at executing his skills towards the death parts of the games and his experience.
“Adil Rashid is also massively important, especially if the two fast lads bowl well. You either have to take risks against 90 to 95 mph or you take risks against someone I think is one of the best spin bowlers white ball world cricket for the last five years, he’s that good. It seems to be going nicely – everyone has come into fitness and form at the business time. To be honest, I didn’t give us a prayer four or five weeks ago.”
While Harmison is confident England will mount a strong defence of their crown, he acknowledges there are quality teams capable of grabbing hold of the tournament. “I think India are favourites, that’s self explanatory, they’ve got a wonderful side but for some reason they haven’t been able to get over the line in recent years:” added Harmison.
3
“South Africa are a really good side, I think they probably have the best T20 batsman in world cricket at the moment in Klaasen and you’ve also got to factor in Kagiso Rabada who is, along with Jofra, Bumrah and Starc, the best pace bowlers in world cricket when it comes to the white ball game.
“Australia just don’t know how to lose, whenever you write them off, they just don’t know how to lose – no one gave them a praise in that 50 over World Cup in India and all of a sudden, Maxwell plays the innings of everybody’s life to keep them in the tournament and then they went on to win it. You can never count Australia out and you can never count New Zealand out, as a team they are very difficult to break down and beat.”
So, with so much to play for this summer Harmison is looking for both teams to grab the headlines and said: “If you set the tone and you get off to a good start, then you get the crowd and the country with you and all of a sudden, the momentum is huge. That’s what I am sure Jos Buttler will be telling his team – we might be 5000 miles away but if we can give our nation something to smile about.”
Tune into talkSPORT’s YouTube cricket channel for regular T20 analysis and discussion, and get ready for all 51 Euro 2024 games to be broadcast across the talkSPORT network.