Luke Littler’s ego was the reason for England’s shock early exit at the World Cup of Darts in June, according to former world champion Michael Smith. The teenage superstar linked up with Luke Humphries and they went into the tournament as the overwhelming favourites to claim the spoils. However, it went spectacularly wrong when they were dumped out by Germany in their first match.
It was a massive shock, given that England were the reigning champions and were being represented by the world’s two highest-ranked players. Littler was accused of ‘letting his country down’ after falling short on the international stage, just days after he scooped an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours. One former player even said that he did not deserve the accolade at all.
Smith, who won last year’s World Cup of Darts alongside Humphries, believes Littler was trying to outdo Humphries rather than working together with him.
He told Oche180: “The way I’m gonna say it might sound bad for the other two players so I’m trying to reword it before I say it. I didn’t have an ego going on the stage. I was world No.2 at the time and I had just come from world No.1.
“Luke Humphries had just taken over and yes, I play him week in and week out, but I was like: ‘This is not me against Luke, this is me and Luke Humphries versus everyone else’, so I let my ego go to one side.
“I thought he is the No.1, he is the main player, and I’ll do everything he needs by leaving his favourite doubles and I’ll take myself out of the comfort zone where I am not used to throwing myself at a certain treble to leave a double on the left-hand side.
“So, if I miss, I know I have the World No.1 sat on his favourite double. This year, I watched a couple of legs and I think Littler was on 125 against Germany.
“He goes for the treble 15 for double tops where nine times out of 10 those are the shots he hits. In that situation, he messed up and left Humphries 93 instead of 60 or even tops.
“That was his ego taking over. They were trying to compete against each other instead of with each other, whereas I wasn’t. I think that’s what helped us to win and that is what was their biggest downfall.”
Meanwhile, legendary referee Russ Bray said that Littler and Humphries may have struggled under the weight of expectation and believing their own hype.
“They looked like rabbits in headlights, they just couldn’t get their game going at all,” said Bray. “They were under a lot of pressure I think because of the hype, and you know, world No.1 and No.2.
“People were saying they were going to win and nobody will touch them. I just thought that caught up with them a little bit.”
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