It's an incredibly tough challenge to win in India, says Chris Woakes

New Delhi, Oct 13 (IANS) England’s fast-bowling all-rounder Chris Woakes admitted that winning matches in India during the 2023 Men's ODI World Cup has been an incredibly tough challenge. At the same time, he backed his team to live up to the expectations people have from them in their quest to retain the title won in 2019.

As of now, India and Pakistan have won both of their games in the tournament so far, so as New Zealand and South Africa. England overcame an opening defeat to New Zealand by defeating Bangladesh by 137 runs in Dharamshala.

"It's an incredibly tough challenge to win in India. Naturally, I think the sub-continental teams will feel more at home with the conditions. That makes it extremely hard for us to knock them off their perch, so to speak. But we've got the squad and the players to be able to compete."

"People have looked at us for a while and we've had a little bit of a target on our back as a white-ball team, around the world. It's a tough competition to win isn't it? Especially here. But we'll give it a good crack. We're taking it each game as it comes. Naturally, people have got expectations of us and we've certainly got our own expectations of ourselves," Woakes was quoted as saying by Sky Sports.

After going wicketless against New Zealand, Woakes got back into the groove by picking two scalps against Bangladesh. With England to next face Afghanistan in New Delhi on October 15, Woakes is keen to move upwards in terms of his performances in the competition.

"It's the start of a long tournament. I certainly feel that I would've liked to have bowled a little bit better but they are long competitions and you don't want to peak too soon, I suppose."

"I have built into tournaments in the past and into series, which I suppose holds me in good stead moving forward. But you contribute every time you go out in the field so I'll be working hard in practice to try and make sure that I'm on the money when I get the opportunity," he added.