A lot of the narrative around England’s build-up to the 2019 World Cup has revolved around the firepower in their batting order. The bowlers, however, are happy to be unsung heroes.

Since the end of their disastrous 2015 World Cup campaign, England’s batsmen have evolved leaps and bounds. They boast an overall strike-rate of 100.49 in this time – significantly higher than any other team’s – and have crossed 350 a whopping 16 times in the last four years.

In the face of such brilliance, it has largely been forgotten that their bowlers have also been quietly doing their bit during the same four-year period, taking 596 wickets – second only to India’s tally of 636. However, if there was any impression that the bowlers feel like they haven’t been given due recognition, Liam Plunkett brushed it aside, likening them to hardworking ants.

The England captain revealed the key reasons behind England's dramatic change in approach to white-ball cricket. #CWC19 https://t.co/YWBtzWQth1

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) May 27, 2019

“We call our bowlers ‘the ants’ as they get on with the job, go home, and the batsmen get the glory,” he said. “We’ll take that, and I just try to go about my business and do the hard yards in the middle, obviously try and make it as boring and difficult as possible for the batters.”

Plunkett acknowledged that the game has become tougher for bowlers in the face of increasingly aggressive batting. But the up-side to that, he said, is that it increases their chances of picking up wickets.

“It’s getting harder now, especially with our team as we can score at 8-9 an over and you know the batters are going to come after you, and maybe that’s helped with my wickets,” he said.

England’s World Cup campaign gets underway on May 30 against South Africa, and their lead-up to the game has been good. They put behind a narrow defeat against Australia in their first warm-up game with a resounding nine-wicket victory against Afghanistan. Given the overall strength, and dominance, of this England outfit, captain Eoin Morgan said that the mood in the camp is starkly different to what it was in the days leading up to the previous World Cup.

“These last three days were quite chaotic four years ago, trying to think about what we were going to do and how we were going to turn things around,” he said. “We did a lot of meetings, chats about how we can get better. Whereas tomorrow I am playing a lot of golf, we will practice on Wednesday, and then go and play on Thursday.”