England’s white-ball men’s cricket team play Australia this Saturday in Lahore, the first of three group matches in the Champions Trophy. Finish in the top two and they will be in the knockout phase and just two wins away from claiming the top prize, the only global limited-over competition they have yet to win.
Sounds straightforward enough except that their form coming into the tournament, held jointly in Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, is woeful. Over three 50-over games and five T20s played away against India, they won one and lost seven – a crushing result for new head coach Brendon McCullum especially after former player, Kevin Pietersen, accused him and the team of adopting a ‘best when fresh’ approach to playing by not practicing enough.
The absence of net sessions was overstated but McCullum’s approach has always been laid back. Indeed it wouldn’t surprise if he now turned to an old favourite from the 20th century and had T-shirts for the players emblazoned with the slogan: ‘Form is Temporary but Class is Permanent’ in preparation for this next challenge. You see McCullum might be called a head coach but in reality he is a motivator who leaves any technical tweaks to others.
Nothing wrong with that, players need to be boosted mentally, but if you keep telling every one of them they are world beaters all of the time, the feeling will soon grow that none of them are. People might claim to be born equal but in a cricket team not all are equally talented. Great coaches offer a bespoke service, not a one-size fits all.
There are further problems facing England. The Champions Trophy is 50-overs per side and most in England’s squad no longer play the format for their counties, the One-Day cup being seen as a development competition where the best players are rested.
Jos Buttler’s team are well versed in T20 but 50 overs is not simply T20 x 2.5, which is how England are trying to play it.
In the recent games against India, age-old problems of playing spin arose with unsurprising predictability. Over the years we’ve been told ad nauseam (mostly by those picked) that the Indian Premier League improves players. If it does, there was precious little evidence from within England’s ranks.
Of course it works both ways and maybe India’s players were just better at exploiting the weaknesses of opponents exposed to the IPL.
Injuries to left-handers Jacob Bethell and Ben Duckett will rob England of variety in the batting (unless Duckett recovers before the weekend), while there is not a left-arm bowler in the squad. Predictability is rarely rewarded in white ball cricket, especially among bowlers, which is where Gus Atkinson falls down.
England have decided that tall pace bowlers are the best way to take wickets and keep run-rates in check. It didn’t work in India but it might go better in Pakistan where pitches tend to be quicker and less grippy for spinners.
Atkinson, though, will need to show more variety and be cagier about when he uses it. The immaculate line and length that produced his sensational start to Test cricket (52 wickets in 11 Tests) is a liability in the white ball game as batters know where to expect the ball and at what pace. Jimmy Anderson, England’s best-ever Test bowler, suffered the same problem, which is why his one-day international career ended nine years before his Test one did.
The trouble with firmer pitches is it will almost certainly make England’s spinners easier to play, especially Adil Rashid, the one banker among the bowlers. Indeed, Rashid has never played 50-over cricket in Pakistan but he has played seven T20 internationals where he leaked runs at 8.29 an over, almost a run higher than his record overall. He took five wickets in those matches, one every 32.2 balls, which is well down on his career strike-rate of a wicket every 19.8 balls.
Pressure on Rashid means pressure on the other bowlers which in turn places pressure on the batters to give them bigger totals to defend whenever the team bats first.
In India, England got off to good starts but faltered once spin came on. Once that happens it puts extra pressure on the early order to push for even better starts knowing that the run-rate will come hurtling down in the middle overs.
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Not that England’s batters need to play more shots, just better ones. Just as fast bowlers became obsessed with the speed gun when it first appeared, trying to push it higher at the expense of accuracy and movement, so too the batters with their obsession of having strike-rates over 130.
And therein lies the problem with England’s batting, they want to play the ultimate game and make totals that crush their opponents even if it means dancing on the edge of a volcano.
For some reason they seem incapable of managing their way to a score that is competitive and likely to prove winning providing the bowlers do their jobs and the catches are taken.
I loathe those buzz phrases beloved of sports psychologists and lifestyle gurus but for once I’m going to relent as this one has been attributed to the French philosopher Voltaire – ‘Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.’ Now that would look good on a T-shirt.
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