England Look To Make It Count At The Fortress That Is Edgbaston

As England contemplate their biggest one-day international in a generation, they will be boosted by the knowledge that they couldn’t have picked a better ground in the world on which to play a World Cup semi-final than ‘Fortress Edgbaston’.

- Chris Stocks

The Birmingham venue has earned that nickname for a very good reason – England have won their past 10 matches there across all formats and are unbeaten at the ground since September 2014.

India, in last Sunday’s must-win group match, were the last to be vanquished here and that was despite the fact around 80 per cent of the crowd were supporting Virat Kohli’s team.

Whether or not there will be more English fans there on Thursday remains to be seen.

But Eoin Morgan and his players know history is on their side when they become the first England team to play a World Cup semi-final in 27 years.

“It’s a place [where] we really like playing,” said Morgan. “If we had a choice of where we’d play all our group stage games, Edgbaston, The Oval and Trent Bridge would have been the grounds where we’d have played the nine games. So it is comforting we are going to one of those.”

Mark Wood, who has defied his history of injury problems to come through eight successive group games, echoes his captain’s sentiments.

“It’s a great atmosphere there,” says the fast bowler. “Whoever we play we’ll have some England supporters behind us. It’s a ground we’ve done well at, so I’m really pleased we’re playing there.”