England thread

[Molehill]

Play like tests until the last ten overs was literally the Peter Moores strategy

You're only looking at this from a batting point of view, where are our wicket takers? If batsmen are not looking to slog every ball, but rotate and wait for the bad ones, then you need genuine wicket takers. Curran for example, has been found out at this level.

I don't know if it's tail wagging dog or what here, but what we thought was our strength has been dragged down to be just as bad as our weakness.

 

[GIMH]

You're only looking at this from a batting point of view, where are our wicket takers? If batsmen are not looking to slog every ball, but rotate and wait for the bad ones, then you need genuine wicket takers. Curran for example, has been found out at this level.

I don't know if it's tail wagging dog or what here, but what we thought was our strength has been dragged down to be just as bad as our weakness.

We won the WC after binning our two biggest Test wicket takers off. So nope

Obviously we need wicket takers and have failed to replace Plunkett. But approaching ODIs like Tests was a bowling problem as much as batting

 

[kevinw]

You're only looking at this from a batting point of view, where are our wicket takers? If batsmen are not looking to slog every ball, but rotate and wait for the bad ones, then you need genuine wicket takers. Curran for example, has been found out at this level.

I don't know if it's tail wagging dog or what here, but what we thought was our strength has been dragged down to be just as bad as our weakness.

Curran is a good T20 bowler because everything is a variation. He doesn't have a stock delivery or a height or pace advantage so he is out of his depth at 50 over and test level.

 

[kevinw]

I bet England are glad they nailed Wood down on a 3y deal. Franchise teams will be hugely impressed by his performances in his tournament.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

Thing is, the home World Cup in 2019 was a huge priority for the England. Strauss as director of cricket basically made ODIs the most important format for the team in the 4 year lead up. We played loads of ODIs, the ODI team got less rotation and resting than the Test team did, they had a core group who had played together lots and had gotten into the habit of winning games and series together.

After 2019, the ECB flicked the ODI switch back to "off". Obviously COVID happened, but even in other years we just haven't played many ODIs. And when we have, it's the format that's seen most rotation with Tests (rightly) but also T20s prioritised. Not only that, but the domestic 50 over comp has been sidelined - it runs alongside the Hundred and thus features mostly reserve players who can't get a franchise gig.

So we don't really have a settled team, and they've barely played the format even at domestic level in years. (Plus away conditions, aging team, no Morgan captain, Stokes can't bowl...)

Eh, we've got some good players so we've got a shot but we're not well prepared for it.

This was my view a couple of months ago.

Then I accidentally got my hopes up just before the tournament started.

I hope we start taking LA cricket seriously again, I still really like the format.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

I hate you Buttler.

Strip the useless tit of captaincy now.

 

[Red_Ink_Squid]

Curran is a good T20 bowler because everything is a variation. He doesn't have a stock delivery or a height or pace advantage so he is out of his depth at 50 over and test level.

He's also good for a 16 (9) cameo with the bat, which is often very useful in T20s, and very rarely of any use in ODIs.

I bet England are glad they nailed Wood down on a 3y deal. Franchise teams will be hugely impressed by his performances in his tournament.

TBF, he averages over 40 with the bat, striking at 133. Only England batter to impress.

 

[mackembhoy]

Play like tests until the last ten overs was literally the Peter Moores strategy

I'd love the Peter Moore's approach than the just give up approach we've had this world cup.

As much as Mark Wood is the last person to blame for our batting performance today. We had 17 overs left with Willey who has a hundred off 40 balls in white ball cricket.

Why throw your wicket away like that they could have just knocked it around for a while and had a go later on.

 

[kevinw]

He's also good for a 16 (9) cameo with the bat, which is often very useful in T20s, and very rarely of any use in ODIs.


TBF, he averages over 40 with the bat, striking at 133. Only England batter to impress.

Not just to pick on Wood. He bowled well in 2019 but how many sides would give a guy averaging 40 in this format around 60-70 games?

 

[Spark]

Yeah for me this doesn't feel like a structural problem at all. Sure maybe their heads aren't in the game but this side clearly has more than enough talent to make the semi-finals and obviously knows how to win a WC. This is a form and leadership issue; there isn't much wrong with the team that couldn't be fixed by confidence and replacing Buttler as captain (and maybe Mott too).

People - well, really one or two fools in the other thread - saying that this proves that England need to play in a less T20esque, aggressive style are completely deluded. Obviously this has been a horrible balls-up of a tournament but the idea that anyone saw this coming is laughable, much less that this proves that the complete shift in philosophy post-2015 was wrong and they need to go back to old-fashioned mid-00s ODI cricket.

 

[kevinw]

Worst defeat of the four? I'd say yes.

 

[flibbertyjibber]

Worst defeat of the four? I'd say yes.

Yes. They gave up today.

 

[Spark]

Yes. They gave up today.

Yeah the way the tail batted was emblematic; they'd thrown in the towel mentally, hence the dumb run out and the mindless slogs.

But that again goes back to poor leadership and not being able to keep the players heads fixated on their professional tasks even when things are going wrong, it's astonishing how quickly confidence has been allowed to vanish from this team after just two bad results. Not "how many domestic List A games do they play?"

 

[quincywagstaff]

This is on track to be England's worst ever performance in an ODI WC, which considering some of their previous efforts is quite an impressive feat.

 

[GIMH]

Yeah for me this doesn't feel like a structural problem at all. Sure maybe their heads aren't in the game but this side clearly has more than enough talent to make the semi-finals and obviously knows how to win a WC. This is a form and leadership issue; there isn't much wrong with the team that couldn't be fixed by confidence and replacing Buttler as captain (and maybe Mott too).

People - well, really one or two fools in the other thread - saying that this proves that England need to play in a less T20esque, aggressive style are completely deluded. Obviously this has been a horrible balls-up of a tournament but the idea that anyone saw this coming is laughable, much less that this proves that the complete shift in philosophy post-2015 was wrong and they need to go back to old-fashioned mid-00s ODI cricket.

Don’t think I’ve ever agreed with a single post of yours this much before Spark

The 50-over comp is a longer term problem but a red herring here. And as an extension, blaming the Hundred for this failure is simply looking to kick that, rather than grounded in anything.

 

[Spark]

This is on track to be England's worst ever performance in an ODI WC, which considering some of their previous efforts is quite an impressive feat.

2015 was much worse than this IMO given that the margin for error there was a lot greater than it was here.

 

[quincywagstaff]

Yeah the way the tail batted was emblematic; they'd thrown in the towel mentally, hence the dumb run out and the mindless slogs.

But that again goes back to poor leadership and not being able to keep the players heads fixated on their professional tasks even when things are going wrong, it's astonishing how quickly confidence has been allowed to vanish from this team after just two bad results. Not "how many domestic List A games do they play?"

The commentators were discussing how there was a sense of staleness amongst the squad, a 'been there, done that' feel.

That may be true, but you could argue that even more strongly about the Australian squad and after a poor start, the experience and skill they have in abundance has started to come out. And if nothing else, a sense of pride in their performance.

Their performances wouldn't have pass muster in the WC qualifying tournament. Seems like they thought Stokes coming out if retirement would solve all their problems.

As mentioned above, probably the biggest issue is that the drive they had towards ODIs in 2015-19 gone now; they seem to have as much passion about the format now as they did in the Fletcher/Vaughan era.

 

[Spark]

That may be true, but you could argue that even more strongly about the Australian squad and after a poor start, the experience and skill they have in abundance has started to come out. And if nothing else, a sense of pride in their performance.

I mean I hate to sound like a broken record but this is the real acid test of the leadership and coaching group, and for the Aus team to have turned it around so quickly - granted with a kinder fixture list and no small amount of luck - is a credit to Cummins and McDonald as I sincerely didn't think they had it in them.

Jos Buttler is a white ball great but he doesn't seem a natural leader; he's not really coming off as a guy able to really focus a group mentally on what they need to do in the short term to get their confidence back when things start to go wrong, and Mott always had some unanswered questions over just how important he was to that all-conquering Aus Women's team and it wasn't always smooth, and here he doesn't have the assistance of having a bona fide ATG of the game and leader of the calibre of Meg Lanning as captain (and nor is this side as stacked as that one was, relatively speaking). I do wonder if he's the right man for this job.

I don't think staleness is the right word but I can buy that they didn't plan as diligently for this tournament as they should have; there is no way they should be having as widespread a form crisis as this. But I would probably be more likely to put that down to overconfidence than a lack of interest; they may well have felt that this team was so stable and so powerful that they didn't really need to be as hard headed as they should have in evaluating and then picking on form.

 

[centurymaker]

I just think that was a small period of freakish talent where the emphasis was on limited overs (look how the Test team suffered during that period). I don't see the current set up being long term successful at finding either Test or ODI cricketers.

And just look at the India/Aus teams here, essentially Test sides with 3 or so limited overs specialists thrown in.

Even the South African side is largely made up of Test players.

 

[centurymaker]

Ind- Pandya, Kuldeep (and SKY)
Aus- Maxwell, Zampa (and Stoinis)
SA- Miller and De Kock