The obvious changes involve the coach and Buttler as Captain. I never expected England to win the WC in India, but we've massively underperformed. We've been humiliated by average teams.
I get there are a hundred and one reasons what we didn't give ourselves a decent chance of winning this world cup but none of them explain this.
10 of those out there today are world cup winners, 6 of them have won two. The last two.
They look like they wouldn't beat a club side.
We thrashed New Zeland 6 weeks ago.
We drew that series 2-2 and we were on home soil too. These are totally different conditions.
Those players don't have to fight to get into the England team. There was no selection process as such or meaningful opportunities for others to stake a claim. An average of 5 ODIs in the last year as opposed to India's 15 per player. It was all based on historical performances. Even Root complained about not having enough ODIs but when you're not around for most of them you are only compounding the problem.
And guess how we've rewarded these players. By giving the likes of Bairstow a two year central contract. Once he is dropped we will have to bring in someone who isn't on one and who should have every right to feel hard done by given that he is replacing a player on £700,000 a year for not even playing.
That said, we've had little or the wrong gameplan. I've pointed out time and again how the better teams have preserved their wickets for the last 10 overs or so. It is absolutely hopeless trying to play Bazball and then ending up being all out in 25 overs. "Going hard" from the start only works on roads and we've played at five different grounds. One size really doesnt fit all and if you don't give yourself time to assess the wicket you are asking to be thrashed in four out of five games.
We have got what we deserved and I fear that our players knew they were out as early as before the last game. Four dead rubbers to play now but no doubt we will learn from those mistakes and people will shout "if only".
We won the series 3-1 winning the last 3 games by a combined 360 runs.
Yes different conditions but it's not like this is the first time any of our players have set foot in India. New Zeland had pretty much the same preparation as us, did they spend all August playing domestic 50 over cricket?
There are loads of reasons the long term health of our 50 over team is in doubt.
There are zero excuses for these performances.
NZ players have taken part, on average, in 20 ODIs in the previous 12 months as opposed to our 5. That is a 15 innings difference - and not just from the perspective of finding form and understanding the nuances of 50 over cricket but also as a guide to squad selection. We played 83 ODIs in the four year run to the 2019 WC. This time we played 42 with many of this squad unavailable for one reason or another. The Metro Bank was an alternative way of preparation that was utlised by England players in 2019 when it was The Royal Insurance. We shunned that too. And to say NZ didn't play in the Metro Bank is a wrong comparison for two reasons - one because NZ batsmen had batted on average that 15 extra times but the other is that I've never heard of a country not giving themselves the best chance to win a WC. It's like saying that we have the best facilities but let's go and train at some village club to level the playing field against some of the lesser countries who do not enjoy the quality of our facilities! And those England players did play in the Royal in 2019. If it was good enough then, it should have been good enough now.
Anyway, let's compare England's top six career in ODIs, in England and in India and then against the likes of NZ and SA in India:
Bavuma 16.75 De Kock 60.30 Markram 44.12 V der Dussen 39.80 Klassen 60.85 Miller 41.12
Total 262.94
So our top six is 81 runs worse in India than in England and worse by 93 than NZ and by 57 than SA in India (had I used Hendricks instead of Bavuma then we would have been worse by 84). Buttler, from no small sample, has batted 14 times in ODIs in India, scoring 178 runs in total with a top score of 43 and as average of 14.83. That is appalling. And he is our captain.
Forget about all the whataboutary and hindsight if you were the England captain/coach/selector would you not have picked Buttler for the world cup? Honestly.
Of course I would but people are shocked that we are doing so badly in India and Buttler is one of the contributory factors. But I also said when he got the captaincy that I wouldn't have given it to him as I was worried about it affecting his keeping and hoping that his batting would still be strong. I had no idea how good a captain he was going to be because he had no pedigree whatsoever as a skipper. And his decision making at times here has been shocking.
I asked without any whataboutary.
Buttler's captaincy, or lack of, isn't the reason arguably the best line and length bowler England have is missing his line and length by meters and England's best batsman doesn't look like he can score a run.
As @billysboots says you would pick at least 7 of 8 of the players England picked regardless of any 50 over form because they are undoubtedly our best players.
The big question now is do they throw the baby out with the bath water and give dad's army a chance for redemption in the t20 world cup or do we go all out for the next 50 over world cup.
Without looking it up I don't think anyone that played today is under 30. Lack of understanding of the formate isn't an excuse.
You ask "without whataboutary" but then conveniently ignore the very reasons I put up as why we haven't turned up. You can't separate the two. You can't on the one hand say "who would you have picked instead of Bairstow", for example, when the provisional squad was based on players playing so few games - Bairstow (3), Root (4), Livingstone (4), Brook (6), Wood (2) who clearly haven't played enough games in that mode compared to Sharma (18), Gill (21), Kohli (19), Rahul (16)
So please allow me to ask you and @billyboots a question:
Do you think India playing 29 ODIs in the 12 months prior to the WC gave them clarity as to what their best squad was and also helped those players to find form?
Still what’s international cricket when we have a ridiculous, garish 100 format that is hated by the majority of cricket fans, loses money and undermines real cricket!
As long as the Southern Brave Rocket Chargers are ok who cares eh?
I get there are a hundred and one reasons what we didn't give ourselves a decent chance of winning this world cup but none of them explain this.
10 of those out there today are world cup winners, 6 of them have won two. The last two.
They look like they wouldn't beat a club side.
We thrashed New Zeland 6 weeks ago.
We drew that series 2-2 and we were on home soil too. These are totally different conditions.
Those players don't have to fight to get into the England team. There was no selection process as such or meaningful opportunities for others to stake a claim. An average of 5 ODIs in the last year as opposed to India's 15 per player. It was all based on historical performances. Even Root complained about not having enough ODIs but when you're not around for most of them you are only compounding the problem.
And guess how we've rewarded these players. By giving the likes of Bairstow a two year central contract. Once he is dropped we will have to bring in someone who isn't on one and who should have every right to feel hard done by given that he is replacing a player on £700,000 a year for not even playing.
That said, we've had little or the wrong gameplan. I've pointed out time and again how the better teams have preserved their wickets for the last 10 overs or so. It is absolutely hopeless trying to play Bazball and then ending up being all out in 25 overs. "Going hard" from the start only works on roads and we've played at five different grounds. One size really doesnt fit all and if you don't give yourself time to assess the wicket you are asking to be thrashed in four out of five games.
We have got what we deserved and I fear that our players knew they were out as early as before the last game. Four dead rubbers to play now but no doubt we will learn from those mistakes and people will shout "if only".
We won the series 3-1 winning the last 3 games by a combined 360 runs.
Yes different conditions but it's not like this is the first time any of our players have set foot in India. New Zeland had pretty much the same preparation as us, did they spend all August playing domestic 50 over cricket?
There are loads of reasons the long term health of our 50 over team is in doubt.
There are zero excuses for these performances.
NZ players have taken part, on average, in 20 ODIs in the previous 12 months as opposed to our 5. That is a 15 innings difference - and not just from the perspective of finding form and understanding the nuances of 50 over cricket but also as a guide to squad selection. We played 83 ODIs in the four year run to the 2019 WC. This time we played 42 with many of this squad unavailable for one reason or another. The Metro Bank was an alternative way of preparation that was utlised by England players in 2019 when it was The Royal Insurance. We shunned that too. And to say NZ didn't play in the Metro Bank is a wrong comparison for two reasons - one because NZ batsmen had batted on average that 15 extra times but the other is that I've never heard of a country not giving themselves the best chance to win a WC. It's like saying that we have the best facilities but let's go and train at some village club to level the playing field against some of the lesser countries who do not enjoy the quality of our facilities! And those England players did play in the Royal in 2019. If it was good enough then, it should have been good enough now.
Anyway, let's compare England's top six career in ODIs, in England and in India and then against the likes of NZ and SA in India:
Bavuma 16.75 De Kock 60.30 Markram 44.12 V der Dussen 39.80 Klassen 60.85 Miller 41.12
Total 262.94
So our top six is 81 runs worse in India than in England and worse by 93 than NZ and by 57 than SA in India (had I used Hendricks instead of Bavuma then we would have been worse by 84). Buttler, from no small sample, has batted 14 times in ODIs in India, scoring 178 runs in total with a top score of 43 and as average of 14.83. That is appalling. And he is our captain.
Forget about all the whataboutary and hindsight if you were the England captain/coach/selector would you not have picked Buttler for the world cup? Honestly.
Of course I would but people are shocked that we are doing so badly in India and Buttler is one of the contributory factors. But I also said when he got the captaincy that I wouldn't have given it to him as I was worried about it affecting his keeping and hoping that his batting would still be strong. I had no idea how good a captain he was going to be because he had no pedigree whatsoever as a skipper. And his decision making at times here has been shocking.
I asked without any whataboutary.
Buttler's captaincy, or lack of, isn't the reason arguably the best line and length bowler England have is missing his line and length by meters and England's best batsman doesn't look like he can score a run.
As @billysboots says you would pick at least 7 of 8 of the players England picked regardless of any 50 over form because they are undoubtedly our best players.
The big question now is do they throw the baby out with the bath water and give dad's army a chance for redemption in the t20 world cup or do we go all out for the next 50 over world cup.
Without looking it up I don't think anyone that played today is under 30. Lack of understanding of the formate isn't an excuse.
You ask "without whataboutary" but then conveniently ignore the very reasons I put up as why we haven't turned up. You can't separate the two. You can't on the one hand say "who would you have picked instead of Bairstow", for example, when the provisional squad was based on players playing so few games - Bairstow (3), Root (4), Livingstone (4), Brook (6), Wood (2) who clearly haven't played enough games in that mode compared to Sharma (18), Gill (21), Kohli (19), Rahul (16)
So please allow me to ask you and @billyboots a question:
Do you think India playing 29 ODIs in the 12 months prior to the WC gave them clarity as to what their best squad was and also helped those players to find form?
I don’t think that you will find anyone disagreeing that if we had 29 ODI’s in the last 12 months it would have given them clarity etc etc
I also think that the you won’t find anyone disagreeing that the squad we took out to India were more than capable of putting up a better fight than they have .
It’s not the first time these guys have played 50 over cricket and they haven’t performed - simple as that
I get there are a hundred and one reasons what we didn't give ourselves a decent chance of winning this world cup but none of them explain this.
10 of those out there today are world cup winners, 6 of them have won two. The last two.
They look like they wouldn't beat a club side.
We thrashed New Zeland 6 weeks ago.
We drew that series 2-2 and we were on home soil too. These are totally different conditions.
Those players don't have to fight to get into the England team. There was no selection process as such or meaningful opportunities for others to stake a claim. An average of 5 ODIs in the last year as opposed to India's 15 per player. It was all based on historical performances. Even Root complained about not having enough ODIs but when you're not around for most of them you are only compounding the problem.
And guess how we've rewarded these players. By giving the likes of Bairstow a two year central contract. Once he is dropped we will have to bring in someone who isn't on one and who should have every right to feel hard done by given that he is replacing a player on £700,000 a year for not even playing.
That said, we've had little or the wrong gameplan. I've pointed out time and again how the better teams have preserved their wickets for the last 10 overs or so. It is absolutely hopeless trying to play Bazball and then ending up being all out in 25 overs. "Going hard" from the start only works on roads and we've played at five different grounds. One size really doesnt fit all and if you don't give yourself time to assess the wicket you are asking to be thrashed in four out of five games.
We have got what we deserved and I fear that our players knew they were out as early as before the last game. Four dead rubbers to play now but no doubt we will learn from those mistakes and people will shout "if only".
We won the series 3-1 winning the last 3 games by a combined 360 runs.
Yes different conditions but it's not like this is the first time any of our players have set foot in India. New Zeland had pretty much the same preparation as us, did they spend all August playing domestic 50 over cricket?
There are loads of reasons the long term health of our 50 over team is in doubt.
There are zero excuses for these performances.
NZ players have taken part, on average, in 20 ODIs in the previous 12 months as opposed to our 5. That is a 15 innings difference - and not just from the perspective of finding form and understanding the nuances of 50 over cricket but also as a guide to squad selection. We played 83 ODIs in the four year run to the 2019 WC. This time we played 42 with many of this squad unavailable for one reason or another. The Metro Bank was an alternative way of preparation that was utlised by England players in 2019 when it was The Royal Insurance. We shunned that too. And to say NZ didn't play in the Metro Bank is a wrong comparison for two reasons - one because NZ batsmen had batted on average that 15 extra times but the other is that I've never heard of a country not giving themselves the best chance to win a WC. It's like saying that we have the best facilities but let's go and train at some village club to level the playing field against some of the lesser countries who do not enjoy the quality of our facilities! And those England players did play in the Royal in 2019. If it was good enough then, it should have been good enough now.
Anyway, let's compare England's top six career in ODIs, in England and in India and then against the likes of NZ and SA in India:
Bavuma 16.75 De Kock 60.30 Markram 44.12 V der Dussen 39.80 Klassen 60.85 Miller 41.12
Total 262.94
So our top six is 81 runs worse in India than in England and worse by 93 than NZ and by 57 than SA in India (had I used Hendricks instead of Bavuma then we would have been worse by 84). Buttler, from no small sample, has batted 14 times in ODIs in India, scoring 178 runs in total with a top score of 43 and as average of 14.83. That is appalling. And he is our captain.
Forget about all the whataboutary and hindsight if you were the England captain/coach/selector would you not have picked Buttler for the world cup? Honestly.
Of course I would but people are shocked that we are doing so badly in India and Buttler is one of the contributory factors. But I also said when he got the captaincy that I wouldn't have given it to him as I was worried about it affecting his keeping and hoping that his batting would still be strong. I had no idea how good a captain he was going to be because he had no pedigree whatsoever as a skipper. And his decision making at times here has been shocking.
I asked without any whataboutary.
Buttler's captaincy, or lack of, isn't the reason arguably the best line and length bowler England have is missing his line and length by meters and England's best batsman doesn't look like he can score a run.
As @billysboots says you would pick at least 7 of 8 of the players England picked regardless of any 50 over form because they are undoubtedly our best players.
The big question now is do they throw the baby out with the bath water and give dad's army a chance for redemption in the t20 world cup or do we go all out for the next 50 over world cup.
Without looking it up I don't think anyone that played today is under 30. Lack of understanding of the formate isn't an excuse.
You ask "without whataboutary" but then conveniently ignore the very reasons I put up as why we haven't turned up. You can't separate the two. You can't on the one hand say "who would you have picked instead of Bairstow", for example, when the provisional squad was based on players playing so few games - Bairstow (3), Root (4), Livingstone (4), Brook (6), Wood (2) who clearly haven't played enough games in that mode compared to Sharma (18), Gill (21), Kohli (19), Rahul (16)
So please allow me to ask you and @billyboots a question:
Do you think India playing 29 ODIs in the 12 months prior to the WC gave them clarity as to what their best squad was and also helped those players to find form?
Are you honestly telling me that 10-15 ODIs in the last 18 months would have made Bairstow, Root, Butler, Woakes, Rashid and Wood, for example, play better now?
If so how? They have played plenty of cricket in that time. They are all in their 30s. They can all bat/bowl to an incredibly high standard.
Let's not go round in circles about Hundreds, Blasts, First Class cricket in August etc, we all know the long term effects they have.
We have at least 6 world class, multiple format, proven winners, that have turned up at a world cup and looked like complete mugs.
If we got to the semi final and Livingstone got a duck and went for a gallon I could say I told you so. But that's not what happened.
You can call Buttler out, rightfully, but he was the captain last year when we won the T20 world cup. In this format he has more time to get messages from the dressing room, especially with the number of sub fielders we have had to use.
I am pretty sure he didn't tell Woakes, for example, to bowl like he did.
There is much, much, more to this than the Hundred.
I get there are a hundred and one reasons what we didn't give ourselves a decent chance of winning this world cup but none of them explain this.
10 of those out there today are world cup winners, 6 of them have won two. The last two.
They look like they wouldn't beat a club side.
We thrashed New Zeland 6 weeks ago.
We drew that series 2-2 and we were on home soil too. These are totally different conditions.
Those players don't have to fight to get into the England team. There was no selection process as such or meaningful opportunities for others to stake a claim. An average of 5 ODIs in the last year as opposed to India's 15 per player. It was all based on historical performances. Even Root complained about not having enough ODIs but when you're not around for most of them you are only compounding the problem.
And guess how we've rewarded these players. By giving the likes of Bairstow a two year central contract. Once he is dropped we will have to bring in someone who isn't on one and who should have every right to feel hard done by given that he is replacing a player on £700,000 a year for not even playing.
That said, we've had little or the wrong gameplan. I've pointed out time and again how the better teams have preserved their wickets for the last 10 overs or so. It is absolutely hopeless trying to play Bazball and then ending up being all out in 25 overs. "Going hard" from the start only works on roads and we've played at five different grounds. One size really doesnt fit all and if you don't give yourself time to assess the wicket you are asking to be thrashed in four out of five games.
We have got what we deserved and I fear that our players knew they were out as early as before the last game. Four dead rubbers to play now but no doubt we will learn from those mistakes and people will shout "if only".
We won the series 3-1 winning the last 3 games by a combined 360 runs.
Yes different conditions but it's not like this is the first time any of our players have set foot in India. New Zeland had pretty much the same preparation as us, did they spend all August playing domestic 50 over cricket?
There are loads of reasons the long term health of our 50 over team is in doubt.
There are zero excuses for these performances.
NZ players have taken part, on average, in 20 ODIs in the previous 12 months as opposed to our 5. That is a 15 innings difference - and not just from the perspective of finding form and understanding the nuances of 50 over cricket but also as a guide to squad selection. We played 83 ODIs in the four year run to the 2019 WC. This time we played 42 with many of this squad unavailable for one reason or another. The Metro Bank was an alternative way of preparation that was utlised by England players in 2019 when it was The Royal Insurance. We shunned that too. And to say NZ didn't play in the Metro Bank is a wrong comparison for two reasons - one because NZ batsmen had batted on average that 15 extra times but the other is that I've never heard of a country not giving themselves the best chance to win a WC. It's like saying that we have the best facilities but let's go and train at some village club to level the playing field against some of the lesser countries who do not enjoy the quality of our facilities! And those England players did play in the Royal in 2019. If it was good enough then, it should have been good enough now.
Anyway, let's compare England's top six career in ODIs, in England and in India and then against the likes of NZ and SA in India:
Bavuma 16.75 De Kock 60.30 Markram 44.12 V der Dussen 39.80 Klassen 60.85 Miller 41.12
Total 262.94
So our top six is 81 runs worse in India than in England and worse by 93 than NZ and by 57 than SA in India (had I used Hendricks instead of Bavuma then we would have been worse by 84). Buttler, from no small sample, has batted 14 times in ODIs in India, scoring 178 runs in total with a top score of 43 and as average of 14.83. That is appalling. And he is our captain.
Forget about all the whataboutary and hindsight if you were the England captain/coach/selector would you not have picked Buttler for the world cup? Honestly.
Of course I would but people are shocked that we are doing so badly in India and Buttler is one of the contributory factors. But I also said when he got the captaincy that I wouldn't have given it to him as I was worried about it affecting his keeping and hoping that his batting would still be strong. I had no idea how good a captain he was going to be because he had no pedigree whatsoever as a skipper. And his decision making at times here has been shocking.
I asked without any whataboutary.
Buttler's captaincy, or lack of, isn't the reason arguably the best line and length bowler England have is missing his line and length by meters and England's best batsman doesn't look like he can score a run.
As @billysboots says you would pick at least 7 of 8 of the players England picked regardless of any 50 over form because they are undoubtedly our best players.
The big question now is do they throw the baby out with the bath water and give dad's army a chance for redemption in the t20 world cup or do we go all out for the next 50 over world cup.
Without looking it up I don't think anyone that played today is under 30. Lack of understanding of the formate isn't an excuse.
You ask "without whataboutary" but then conveniently ignore the very reasons I put up as why we haven't turned up. You can't separate the two. You can't on the one hand say "who would you have picked instead of Bairstow", for example, when the provisional squad was based on players playing so few games - Bairstow (3), Root (4), Livingstone (4), Brook (6), Wood (2) who clearly haven't played enough games in that mode compared to Sharma (18), Gill (21), Kohli (19), Rahul (16)
So please allow me to ask you and @billyboots a question:
Do you think India playing 29 ODIs in the 12 months prior to the WC gave them clarity as to what their best squad was and also helped those players to find form?
Are you honestly telling me that 10-15 ODIs in the last 18 months would have made Bairstow, Root, Butler, Woakes, Rashid and Wood, for example, play better now?
If so how? They have played plenty of cricket in that time. They are all in their 30s. They can all bat/bowl to an incredibly high standard.
Let's not go round in circles about Hundreds, Blasts, First Class cricket in August etc, we all know the long term effects they have.
We have at least 6 world class, multiple format, proven winners, that have turned up at a world cup and looked like complete mugs.
If we got to the semi final and Livingstone got a duck and went for a gallon I could say I told you so. But that's not what happened.
You can call Buttler out, rightfully, but he was the captain last year when we won the T20 world cup. In this format he has more time to get messages from the dressing room, especially with the number of sub fielders we have had to use.
I am pretty sure he didn't tell Woakes, for example, to bowl like he did.
There is much, much, more to this than the Hundred.
Twice you accuse me of using "whataboutary" but then you don't answer the question I pose with a straight answer as to whether India benefitted from having 29 ODIs (not in 18 months) in 12 months! If you don't think that India have benefitted from that then what really was the purpose of them playing those? This is, after all, a nation where T20 is normally the be all and end all. In the previous 12 months to that they played just 15 ODIs so deliberately doubled their ODIs. Why would they do that if is wasn't to prepare for the WC?
My whole point about utlising those 29 ODIs, in addition to getting used to the format and finding form, was that we based our selection on historical ODI data and T20. 20 over cricket is not the same as 50 over cricket in the sense that you can afford to lose three wickets in the first 10 overs in a T20 but you can't do so in an ODI. If you want one shining example of someone that is unproven batting time then there's Livingstone. This is someone who has only once, in any form of the game, batted for more than 50 balls in 140 innings dating back to June 2021!!! So what evidence was there that he could consistently do that in India especially batting at 6? Equally, Bairstow hasn't scored an ODI hundred in over two and a half years and hadn't
played an ODI for 15 months prior to the NZ series when he averaged 13 in those four games.
Now had we played 29 ODIs we might have been able to give a run to the likes of say Duckett and Crawley and they might have been able to find the sort of form that would have kept Bairstow out of the side. Equally, we might have been able to take more of a look at Jacks or someone else and found a better option that Livingstone. We might have found a better seam bowler than Woakes especially in Indian conditions. But we played 20 less ODIs than India and never gave ourselves the chance to do that. It became harder for any of us to pick the right squad because everything was based on what had been done in years gone by.
You finally say that what I've said is "There is much, much, more to this than the Hundred". I didn't say that The Hundred was the sole cause of our dreadful performances here. I said that it was an opportunity for our internationals to play in the domestic 50 over competition but had we played 29 ODIs in the preceding 12 months then those players might not have needed to have done so. But they did neither. And that's not about "Bairstow, Root, Butler, Woakes, Rashid and Wood playing better now". It's about giving them the opportunity in the middle to find the form that made them brilliant ODI cricketers. And if they couldn't do so then we would have had enough evidence to find a replacement that might have done so.
I'm a bit sceptical of any article that includes the statement that the 10 team league format for the World Cup is working. There hasn't been a single close game yet, and with teams still having 4 games to p;lay most of them know almost certainly whether they're going to qualify or not. The suggestion of a league to determine qualification for future tournaments is sensible, but the key point is the remark made in passing that what will happen will be whatever India wants. One country generates all the TV money so that country gets to decide what formats are played.
To be honest i think you both make some good points.
Clearly we have come in woefully underprepared for this tournament, and we might have got away with it in some places, but not in Indian conditions.
However i do think there's more than just a lack of preparation at play here. This lot have not looked like they wanted to be there from the off.
There is a school of thought that the contract negotiations have been a bit of a distraction but these were over way before they left for India. By all accounts, Willey is less than amused at not being offered one and the timing of the announcement could not have been worse from that perspective in so far as it can create a "them and us" split. Although, actually, Willey can hardly be accused of being one of the worst performers. Perhaps he had a point to prove.
Another factor is that we do not have a settled team simply because we don't actually know what our best team is. In the 2019 WC I believe that we made five changes in total. In the last two games we've made six and the maximum we could have made is eight! The one player who has had to sit out both of those is Curran and given his value to the IPL in India, that cannot make him the happiest of players. Not that I am suggestion that he has any reason to question that. We must have made the most changes of any team out there because we are still searching. And that brings me back to my point about India having played 29 ODIs in 12 months. They aren't searching and neither are the likes of India, NZ or SA who have made less than an average of one unforced change per game.
A settled team equals a happy team. Yes fringe players will be disappointed that they aren't in the side but Ashwin, for example, will understand that this is because the team is winning every game. Whereas, an unsettled team leads to questions from the other four as to why they aren't in the side. Whether they are right or wrong to do so.
This is from Simon Wilde in The Times today. Much of what I have been saying. When the coach admits that they have been "guessing" on squad selection then who can deny that much of the issues lay in not playing enough ODIs. We really should not be "guessing" going into a World Cup:
Maybe the real problems began before the tournament, with England simply not playing enough ODIs to allow the players to formulate their roles alongside each other, or to enable the captain and coach to judge whether some of the fringe players were actually ready to displace the veterans of the 2019 campaign. Might Phil Salt, Will Jacks or Ben Duckett have been hungrier for success, and done better than those who were selected? The head coach, Matthew Mott, has admitted that they were left guessing with some selections.
This is what Mott actually said:
“I’m not an administrator, I’m a coach, and it does no good to think about things I can’t control. We knew coming into this tournament we were guessing a bit, in terms of being able to compare different players.
Once you find the reason as to why The Ashes couldn't have run into the beginning of August as it always has done and we couldn't then have had a five match ODI series against Australia, you find the answer as to why our Head Coach was guessing as to the best make up of the squad. And if we really couldn't have done that (and I can't find a reason other than the protection of the ECB's attendance and viewing figures for their Mickey Mouse competition) then you have to ask why the England players couldn't have played in the Metro Bank. The trouble is that the reason is the same one.
I don't think anyone, anywhere has suggested that England played enough ODIs in the lead-up to this year's World Cup. In fact, it's probably a ubiquitous agreement that England would have been better prepared had they played more ODIs.
But, we're not alone in playing very few ODIs over the August-September period. In fact only two teams - India (7) and Pakistan (5) - won more ODIs in those two months than England (4).
But it's more complicated than a straight correlation between number of ODIs played and success in the competition. If it were, then, based on the ODIs played since the start of June, Sri Lanka would be topping the World Cup table, instead of languishing outside the qualifying section. And India would be joined in the top four by Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The reason that Sri Lanka's proliferation of ODIs hasn't resulted in a concomitant trouncing of all World Cup competitors is that the quality of the opposition they were beating was so poor. Sri Lanka - one of only six teams to win the WC - chose to flex their skills against UAE, Scotland, Ireland, Oman and other, lower-standard opposition.
Two crucial elements should be both the number of ODIs a team plays and the quality of the opposition. England should have found space in the calendar to play more ODIs, as late as possible in the year ahead of the World Cup.
The winners will be the team who can count the likes of India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanks and, yes, England, on their list of recent scalps. The path to being the best is beating the best. No fiddling with the domestic calendar will achieve that - it's tough ODIs that will hone England's skills, not bemoaning the paucity of matches between Derbyshire and Somerset, or wringing hands at the lack of matches between Essex and Sussex. Proper, hard-fought, top-class ODIs, with experienced, top-quality opposition is the way to prepare properly for the World Cup; not the nonsense of T20 matches in September, or Zak Crawley captaining a B-team against Ireland.
I don't think anyone, anywhere has suggested that England played enough ODIs in the lead-up to this year's World Cup. In fact, it's probably a ubiquitous agreement that England would have been better prepared had they played more ODIs.
But, we're not alone in playing very few ODIs over the August-September period. In fact only two teams - India (7) and Pakistan (5) - won more ODIs in those two months than England (4).
But it's more complicated than a straight correlation between number of ODIs played and success in the competition. If it were, then, based on the ODIs played since the start of June, Sri Lanka would be topping the World Cup table, instead of languishing outside the qualifying section. And India would be joined in the top four by Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The reason that Sri Lanka's proliferation of ODIs hasn't resulted in a concomitant trouncing of all World Cup competitors is that the quality of the opposition they were beating was so poor. Sri Lanka - one of only six teams to win the WC - chose to flex their skills against UAE, Scotland, Ireland, Oman and other, lower-standard opposition.
Two crucial elements should be both the number of ODIs a team plays and the quality of the opposition. England should have found space in the calendar to play more ODIs, as late as possible in the year ahead of the World Cup.
The winners will be the team who can count the likes of India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanks and, yes, England, on their list of recent scalps. The path to being the best is beating the best. No fiddling with the domestic calendar will achieve that - it's tough ODIs that will hone England's skills, not bemoaning the paucity of matches between Derbyshire and Somerset, or wringing hands at the lack of matches between Essex and Sussex. Proper, hard-fought, top-class ODIs, with experienced, top-quality opposition is the way to prepare properly for the World Cup; not the nonsense of T20 matches in September, or Zak Crawley captaining a B-team against Ireland.
It's not just about playing from August-September. That should be the "icing on the cake" and not the cake itself. India, in playing 29 ODIs in a year knew what their best team was and those two months were utilitsed to maintain the form of those players and formulate a gameplan. We prepared in that way for 2019. We should be comparing ourselves against the teams most likely to win the tournament AND the best prepared. It's not an "either/or".
I don't think anyone, anywhere has suggested that England played enough ODIs in the lead-up to this year's World Cup. In fact, it's probably a ubiquitous agreement that England would have been better prepared had they played more ODIs.
But, we're not alone in playing very few ODIs over the August-September period. In fact only two teams - India (7) and Pakistan (5) - won more ODIs in those two months than England (4).
But it's more complicated than a straight correlation between number of ODIs played and success in the competition. If it were, then, based on the ODIs played since the start of June, Sri Lanka would be topping the World Cup table, instead of languishing outside the qualifying section. And India would be joined in the top four by Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The reason that Sri Lanka's proliferation of ODIs hasn't resulted in a concomitant trouncing of all World Cup competitors is that the quality of the opposition they were beating was so poor. Sri Lanka - one of only six teams to win the WC - chose to flex their skills against UAE, Scotland, Ireland, Oman and other, lower-standard opposition.
Two crucial elements should be both the number of ODIs a team plays and the quality of the opposition. England should have found space in the calendar to play more ODIs, as late as possible in the year ahead of the World Cup.
The winners will be the team who can count the likes of India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanks and, yes, England, on their list of recent scalps. The path to being the best is beating the best. No fiddling with the domestic calendar will achieve that - it's tough ODIs that will hone England's skills, not bemoaning the paucity of matches between Derbyshire and Somerset, or wringing hands at the lack of matches between Essex and Sussex. Proper, hard-fought, top-class ODIs, with experienced, top-quality opposition is the way to prepare properly for the World Cup; not the nonsense of T20 matches in September, or Zak Crawley captaining a B-team against Ireland.
It's not just about playing from August-September. That should be the "icing on the cake" and not the cake itself. India, in playing 29 ODIs in a year knew what their best team was and those two months were utilitsed to maintain the form of those players and formulate a gameplan. We prepared in that way for 2019. We should be comparing ourselves against the teams most likely to win the tournament AND the best prepared. It's not an "either/or".
Yes, we should be comparing ourselves against the best teams. That's pretty much the crux of what I posted. ("The path to being the best is beating the best"). We should have played more ODIs against better teams in the lead-up to the World Cup.
I don't think anyone, anywhere has suggested that England played enough ODIs in the lead-up to this year's World Cup. In fact, it's probably a ubiquitous agreement that England would have been better prepared had they played more ODIs.
But, we're not alone in playing very few ODIs over the August-September period. In fact only two teams - India (7) and Pakistan (5) - won more ODIs in those two months than England (4).
But it's more complicated than a straight correlation between number of ODIs played and success in the competition. If it were, then, based on the ODIs played since the start of June, Sri Lanka would be topping the World Cup table, instead of languishing outside the qualifying section. And India would be joined in the top four by Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The reason that Sri Lanka's proliferation of ODIs hasn't resulted in a concomitant trouncing of all World Cup competitors is that the quality of the opposition they were beating was so poor. Sri Lanka - one of only six teams to win the WC - chose to flex their skills against UAE, Scotland, Ireland, Oman and other, lower-standard opposition.
Two crucial elements should be both the number of ODIs a team plays and the quality of the opposition. England should have found space in the calendar to play more ODIs, as late as possible in the year ahead of the World Cup.
The winners will be the team who can count the likes of India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanks and, yes, England, on their list of recent scalps. The path to being the best is beating the best. No fiddling with the domestic calendar will achieve that - it's tough ODIs that will hone England's skills, not bemoaning the paucity of matches between Derbyshire and Somerset, or wringing hands at the lack of matches between Essex and Sussex. Proper, hard-fought, top-class ODIs, with experienced, top-quality opposition is the way to prepare properly for the World Cup; not the nonsense of T20 matches in September, or Zak Crawley captaining a B-team against Ireland.
It's not just about playing from August-September. That should be the "icing on the cake" and not the cake itself. India, in playing 29 ODIs in a year knew what their best team was and those two months were utilitsed to maintain the form of those players and formulate a gameplan. We prepared in that way for 2019. We should be comparing ourselves against the teams most likely to win the tournament AND the best prepared. It's not an "either/or".
Yes, we should be comparing ourselves against the best teams. That's pretty much the crux of what I posted. ("The path to being the best is beating the best"). We should have played more ODIs against better teams in the lead-up to the World Cup.
And played 15 more ODIs prior to that where all of the prospective WC squad made themselves available more often that not and not been allowed to play T20 in the UAE instead. £700,000 a year should be enough to insist on that.
I read an article from Vaughn a week or so ago which said that Domestic 50 over cricket had no influence over our poor showing in the World Cup.
Lots of differing opinions.
And in what coaching capacity is Vaughan employed as? In fact, he is employed as a commentator for the BBC on The Hundred. He is hardly likely to say anything else is he?
Farbrace is Sussex's Head Coach and prior to that was Sporting Director at Warwickshire as well as formerly being the England Assistant Head Coach. He is very much at the "coal face". As I've said, I would have taken 29 ODIs including a five match series against Australia in lieu of those England players taking part in the Metro Bank. But that isn't to say that our domestic 50 over comp isn't just for the development of youngsters. Because it is. And that isn't right either.
I read an article from Vaughn a week or so ago which said that Domestic 50 over cricket had no influence over our poor showing in the World Cup.
Lots of differing opinions.
And in what coaching capacity is Vaughan employed as? In fact, he is employed as a commentator for the BBC on The Hundred. He is hardly likely to say anything else is he?
Farbrace is Sussex's Head Coach and prior to that was Sporting Director at Warwickshire as well as formerly being the England Assistant Head Coach. He is very much at the "coal face". As I've said, I would have taken 29 ODIs including a five match series against Australia in lieu of those England players taking part in the Metro Bank. But that isn't to say that our domestic 50 over comp isn't just for the development of youngsters. Because it is. And that isn't right either.
So we have to discount Vaughan's opinion on domestic cricket as he is employed for the BBC and not a coach ?
The ironic part is that I that I have just gone back and re-read the article from the Telegraph on the 23rd and he actually agrees with a lot of the points that you have made regarding England taking their eye off the in ODI's in recent years. So should we discount that as well because he isnt employed as a coach and works for the BBC or is that one ok ?
I read an article from Vaughn a week or so ago which said that Domestic 50 over cricket had no influence over our poor showing in the World Cup.
Lots of differing opinions.
And in what coaching capacity is Vaughan employed as? In fact, he is employed as a commentator for the BBC on The Hundred. He is hardly likely to say anything else is he?
Farbrace is Sussex's Head Coach and prior to that was Sporting Director at Warwickshire as well as formerly being the England Assistant Head Coach. He is very much at the "coal face". As I've said, I would have taken 29 ODIs including a five match series against Australia in lieu of those England players taking part in the Metro Bank. But that isn't to say that our domestic 50 over comp isn't just for the development of youngsters. Because it is. And that isn't right either.
So we have to discount Vaughan's opinion on domestic cricket as he is employed for the BBC and not a coach ?
The ironic part is that I that I have just gone back and re-read the article from the Telegraph on the 23rd and he actually agrees with a lot of the points that you have made regarding England taking their eye off the in ODI's in recent years. So should we discount that as well because he isnt employed as a coach and works for the BBC or is that one ok ?
I just believe that someone who has a vested interest in promoting one competition as Vaughan has consistently done does not carry the same weight as someone who actually does the job of coaching on a day to day basis the teams that compete in the domestic 50 over competition. I very much doubt that Vaughan ever watches the Metro Bank matches given that his focus is on The Hundred.
However, as I keep stressing, had England played 29 ODIs including a five match series in August against the Aussies we would be in a far better position than we are now and playing in the Metro Bank would not have been as important. But the players didn't have those options because of the ECB's flagship competition. I don't think anyone could argue that one. The benefits of making the Metro Bank a first team competition in the true sense of the meaning are separate ones.
I read an article from Vaughn a week or so ago which said that Domestic 50 over cricket had no influence over our poor showing in the World Cup.
Lots of differing opinions.
And in what coaching capacity is Vaughan employed as? In fact, he is employed as a commentator for the BBC on The Hundred. He is hardly likely to say anything else is he?
Farbrace is Sussex's Head Coach and prior to that was Sporting Director at Warwickshire as well as formerly being the England Assistant Head Coach. He is very much at the "coal face". As I've said, I would have taken 29 ODIs including a five match series against Australia in lieu of those England players taking part in the Metro Bank. But that isn't to say that our domestic 50 over comp isn't just for the development of youngsters. Because it is. And that isn't right either.
So we have to discount Vaughan's opinion on domestic cricket as he is employed for the BBC and not a coach ?
The ironic part is that I that I have just gone back and re-read the article from the Telegraph on the 23rd and he actually agrees with a lot of the points that you have made regarding England taking their eye off the in ODI's in recent years. So should we discount that as well because he isnt employed as a coach and works for the BBC or is that one ok ?
I just believe that someone who has a vested interest in promoting one competition as Vaughan has consistently done does not carry the same weight as someone who actually does the job of coaching on a day to day basis the teams that compete in the domestic 50 over competition. I very much doubt that Vaughan ever watches the Metro Bank matches given that his focus is on The Hundred.
However, as I keep stressing, had England played 29 ODIs including a five match series in August against the Aussies we would be in a far better position than we are now and playing in the Metro Bank would not have been as important. But the players didn't have those options because of the ECB's flagship competition. I don't think anyone could argue that one. The benefits of making the Metro Bank a first team competition in the true sense of the meaning are separate ones.
We should discount Vaughan because he is a BBC commentator and has a "vested interest" in one of the competitions on which he commentates. But we should also pay attention to Farbrace whose comments promote more games for counties like Sussex, for whom he is coach?
Some of the sides put out in the Metro Bank are basically 2XI sides. No wonder Pujara averaged 90+ in it in 2022. I get using it to develop young players but it just feels like a complete afterthought of a competition as it stands.
BBC in their comments section for England's loss to Sri Lanka is nearly totally about the hundred having a negative effect on the preparation.this is over 2000 comments.
BBC has hardly mentioned the hundred and certainly not in any serious negative way.
Two pieces on their website today-
Aggers has just put his assessment on BBC website. No mention of the hundred though does blame the preparation.
Another assesment by BBC sport journalist Mathew Henry mentions the hundred once in his rather long piece on why England did so poorly. He says...
"But to put the blame solely on the schedule would let a tournament that has been muddled from the outset off the hook.
So too would pointing the finger only at The Hundred."
Seems to me they are ignoring the general large consensus that the hundred is and has been a waste of time, money, resources and has become a detriment to the game in this country. Yeah but what about the womens game. Could easily been helped by focusing and promoting the woman's game in the T20 blast.
BBC in their comments section for England's loss to Sri Lanka is nearly totally about the hundred having a negative effect on the preparation.this is over 2000 comments.
BBC has hardly mentioned the hundred and certainly not in any serious negative way.
Two pieces on their website today-
Aggers has just put his assessment on BBC website. No mention of the hundred though does blame the preparation.
Another assesment by BBC sport journalist Mathew Henry mentions the hundred once in his rather long piece on why England did so poorly. He says...
"But to put the blame solely on the schedule would let a tournament that has been muddled from the outset off the hook.
So too would pointing the finger only at The Hundred."
Seems to me they are ignoring the general large consensus that the hundred is and has been a waste of time, money, resources and has become a detriment to the game in this country. Yeah but what about the womens game. Could easily been helped by focusing and promoting the woman's game in the T20 blast.
Maybe it's the people that think the Hundred is and has been a waste of time, money and resources who've got it wrong..?
BBC in their comments section for England's loss to Sri Lanka is nearly totally about the hundred having a negative effect on the preparation.this is over 2000 comments.
BBC has hardly mentioned the hundred and certainly not in any serious negative way.
Two pieces on their website today-
Aggers has just put his assessment on BBC website. No mention of the hundred though does blame the preparation.
Another assesment by BBC sport journalist Mathew Henry mentions the hundred once in his rather long piece on why England did so poorly. He says...
"But to put the blame solely on the schedule would let a tournament that has been muddled from the outset off the hook.
So too would pointing the finger only at The Hundred."
Seems to me they are ignoring the general large consensus that the hundred is and has been a waste of time, money, resources and has become a detriment to the game in this country. Yeah but what about the womens game. Could easily been helped by focusing and promoting the woman's game in the T20 blast.
Maybe it's the people that think the Hundred is and has been a waste of time, money and resources who've got it wrong..?
BBC in their comments section for England's loss to Sri Lanka is nearly totally about the hundred having a negative effect on the preparation.this is over 2000 comments.
BBC has hardly mentioned the hundred and certainly not in any serious negative way.
Two pieces on their website today-
Aggers has just put his assessment on BBC website. No mention of the hundred though does blame the preparation.
Another assesment by BBC sport journalist Mathew Henry mentions the hundred once in his rather long piece on why England did so poorly. He says...
"But to put the blame solely on the schedule would let a tournament that has been muddled from the outset off the hook.
So too would pointing the finger only at The Hundred."
Seems to me they are ignoring the general large consensus that the hundred is and has been a waste of time, money, resources and has become a detriment to the game in this country. Yeah but what about the womens game. Could easily been helped by focusing and promoting the woman's game in the T20 blast.
But former England captain Hussain, speaking on Sky, encouraged the game to avoid looking at root and branch review, instead blaming the team’s underperformance on the biggest stage.
“What I don’t like is giving the players a cop out, and I think sometimes we do that in English cricket,” he said. “When they win the 50-over World Cup and they win the 20-over World Cup, ‘aren’t they great, aren’t they brilliant’.
“But when the wheels come off, it’s the structure of English cricket. ‘We’re a disgrace, we play 20-over cricket, we play 100-ball cricket, we don’t play enough 50-over cricket’. How much 50-over domestic cricket has Virat Kohli played, or Heinrich Klaasen or anyone out here? They don’t play domestic, they learn from T20 franchises around the world. That is what has made this great [English] side over the past decade.
BBC in their comments section for England's loss to Sri Lanka is nearly totally about the hundred having a negative effect on the preparation.this is over 2000 comments.
BBC has hardly mentioned the hundred and certainly not in any serious negative way.
Two pieces on their website today-
Aggers has just put his assessment on BBC website. No mention of the hundred though does blame the preparation.
Another assesment by BBC sport journalist Mathew Henry mentions the hundred once in his rather long piece on why England did so poorly. He says...
"But to put the blame solely on the schedule would let a tournament that has been muddled from the outset off the hook.
So too would pointing the finger only at The Hundred."
Seems to me they are ignoring the general large consensus that the hundred is and has been a waste of time, money, resources and has become a detriment to the game in this country. Yeah but what about the womens game. Could easily been helped by focusing and promoting the woman's game in the T20 blast.
But former England captain Hussain, speaking on Sky, encouraged the game to avoid looking at root and branch review, instead blaming the team’s underperformance on the biggest stage.
“What I don’t like is giving the players a cop out, and I think sometimes we do that in English cricket,” he said. “When they win the 50-over World Cup and they win the 20-over World Cup, ‘aren’t they great, aren’t they brilliant’.
“But when the wheels come off, it’s the structure of English cricket. ‘We’re a disgrace, we play 20-over cricket, we play 100-ball cricket, we don’t play enough 50-over cricket’. How much 50-over domestic cricket has Virat Kohli played, or Heinrich Klaasen or anyone out here? They don’t play domestic, they learn from T20 franchises around the world. That is what has made this great [English] side over the past decade.
All true they learn from T20 franchises/internationals (the blast could of been one of the top versions with investment, obviously won't be as big as IPL) plus ODI. Which both of those players have played more, in competitive matches and alongside their international team mates.
I don't think the hundred is solely responsible for the demise of this England team. All I do know it hasn't helped. Mainly because of when it's being played. (Plus don't sky cover the hundred as well...)
Comments
We've been humiliated by average teams.
You ask "without whataboutary" but then conveniently ignore the very reasons I put up as why we haven't turned up. You can't separate the two. You can't on the one hand say "who would you have picked instead of Bairstow", for example, when the provisional squad was based on players playing so few games - Bairstow (3), Root (4), Livingstone (4), Brook (6), Wood (2) who clearly haven't played enough games in that mode compared to Sharma (18), Gill (21), Kohli (19), Rahul (16)
So please allow me to ask you and @billyboots a question:
Do you think India playing 29 ODIs in the 12 months prior to the WC gave them clarity as to what their best squad was and also helped those players to find form?
As long as the Southern Brave Rocket Chargers are ok who cares eh?
I also think that the you won’t find anyone disagreeing that the squad we took out to India were more than capable of putting up a better fight than they have .
It’s not the first time these guys have played 50 over cricket and they haven’t performed - simple as that
If so how? They have played plenty of cricket in that time. They are all in their 30s. They can all bat/bowl to an incredibly high standard.
Let's not go round in circles about Hundreds, Blasts, First Class cricket in August etc, we all know the long term effects they have.
We have at least 6 world class, multiple format, proven winners, that have turned up at a world cup and looked like complete mugs.
If we got to the semi final and Livingstone got a duck and went for a gallon I could say I told you so. But that's not what happened.
You can call Buttler out, rightfully, but he was the captain last year when we won the T20 world cup. In this format he has more time to get messages from the dressing room, especially with the number of sub fielders we have had to use.
I am pretty sure he didn't tell Woakes, for example, to bowl like he did.
There is much, much, more to this than the Hundred.
My whole point about utlising those 29 ODIs, in addition to getting used to the format and finding form, was that we based our selection on historical ODI data and T20. 20 over cricket is not the same as 50 over cricket in the sense that you can afford to lose three wickets in the first 10 overs in a T20 but you can't do so in an ODI. If you want one shining example of someone that is unproven batting time then there's Livingstone. This is someone who has only once, in any form of the game, batted for more than 50 balls in 140 innings dating back to June 2021!!! So what evidence was there that he could consistently do that in India especially batting at 6? Equally, Bairstow hasn't scored an ODI hundred in over two and a half years and hadn't played an ODI for 15 months prior to the NZ series when he averaged 13 in those four games.
Now had we played 29 ODIs we might have been able to give a run to the likes of say Duckett and Crawley and they might have been able to find the sort of form that would have kept Bairstow out of the side. Equally, we might have been able to take more of a look at Jacks or someone else and found a better option that Livingstone. We might have found a better seam bowler than Woakes especially in Indian conditions. But we played 20 less ODIs than India and never gave ourselves the chance to do that. It became harder for any of us to pick the right squad because everything was based on what had been done in years gone by.
You finally say that what I've said is "There is much, much, more to this than the Hundred". I didn't say that The Hundred was the sole cause of our dreadful performances here. I said that it was an opportunity for our internationals to play in the domestic 50 over competition but had we played 29 ODIs in the preceding 12 months then those players might not have needed to have done so. But they did neither. And that's not about "Bairstow, Root, Butler, Woakes, Rashid and Wood playing better now". It's about giving them the opportunity in the middle to find the form that made them brilliant ODI cricketers. And if they couldn't do so then we would have had enough evidence to find a replacement that might have done so.
Clearly we have come in woefully underprepared for this tournament, and we might have got away with it in some places, but not in Indian conditions.
However i do think there's more than just a lack of preparation at play here. This lot have not looked like they wanted to be there from the off.
https://www.theage.com.au/sport/cricket/they-ve-just-got-to-grow-up-australia-s-mission-to-save-one-day-cricket-20231025-p5eery.html
Another factor is that we do not have a settled team simply because we don't actually know what our best team is. In the 2019 WC I believe that we made five changes in total. In the last two games we've made six and the maximum we could have made is eight! The one player who has had to sit out both of those is Curran and given his value to the IPL in India, that cannot make him the happiest of players. Not that I am suggestion that he has any reason to question that. We must have made the most changes of any team out there because we are still searching. And that brings me back to my point about India having played 29 ODIs in 12 months. They aren't searching and neither are the likes of India, NZ or SA who have made less than an average of one unforced change per game.
A settled team equals a happy team. Yes fringe players will be disappointed that they aren't in the side but Ashwin, for example, will understand that this is because the team is winning every game. Whereas, an unsettled team leads to questions from the other four as to why they aren't in the side. Whether they are right or wrong to do so.
Maybe the real problems began before the tournament, with England simply not playing enough ODIs to allow the players to formulate their roles alongside each other, or to enable the captain and coach to judge whether some of the fringe players were actually ready to displace the veterans of the 2019 campaign. Might Phil Salt, Will Jacks or Ben Duckett have been hungrier for success, and done better than those who were selected? The head coach, Matthew Mott, has admitted that they were left guessing with some selections.
This is what Mott actually said:
“I’m not an administrator, I’m a coach, and it does no good to think about things I can’t control. We knew coming into this tournament we were guessing a bit, in terms of being able to compare different players.
Once you find the reason as to why The Ashes couldn't have run into the beginning of August as it always has done and we couldn't then have had a five match ODI series against Australia, you find the answer as to why our Head Coach was guessing as to the best make up of the squad. And if we really couldn't have done that (and I can't find a reason other than the protection of the ECB's attendance and viewing figures for their Mickey Mouse competition) then you have to ask why the England players couldn't have played in the Metro Bank. The trouble is that the reason is the same one.
But, we're not alone in playing very few ODIs over the August-September period. In fact only two teams - India (7) and Pakistan (5) - won more ODIs in those two months than England (4).
But it's more complicated than a straight correlation between number of ODIs played and success in the competition. If it were, then, based on the ODIs played since the start of June, Sri Lanka would be topping the World Cup table, instead of languishing outside the qualifying section. And India would be joined in the top four by Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The reason that Sri Lanka's proliferation of ODIs hasn't resulted in a concomitant trouncing of all World Cup competitors is that the quality of the opposition they were beating was so poor. Sri Lanka - one of only six teams to win the WC - chose to flex their skills against UAE, Scotland, Ireland, Oman and other, lower-standard opposition.
Two crucial elements should be both the number of ODIs a team plays and the quality of the opposition. England should have found space in the calendar to play more ODIs, as late as possible in the year ahead of the World Cup.
The winners will be the team who can count the likes of India, Australia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanks and, yes, England, on their list of recent scalps. The path to being the best is beating the best. No fiddling with the domestic calendar will achieve that - it's tough ODIs that will hone England's skills, not bemoaning the paucity of matches between Derbyshire and Somerset, or wringing hands at the lack of matches between Essex and Sussex. Proper, hard-fought, top-class ODIs, with experienced, top-quality opposition is the way to prepare properly for the World Cup; not the nonsense of T20 matches in September, or Zak Crawley captaining a B-team against Ireland.
Lots of differing opinions.
Farbrace is Sussex's Head Coach and prior to that was Sporting Director at Warwickshire as well as formerly being the England Assistant Head Coach. He is very much at the "coal face". As I've said, I would have taken 29 ODIs including a five match series against Australia in lieu of those England players taking part in the Metro Bank. But that isn't to say that our domestic 50 over comp isn't just for the development of youngsters. Because it is. And that isn't right either.
The ironic part is that I that I have just gone back and re-read the article from the Telegraph on the 23rd and he actually agrees with a lot of the points that you have made regarding England taking their eye off the in ODI's in recent years. So should we discount that as well because he isnt employed as a coach and works for the BBC or is that one ok ?
I just believe that someone who has a vested interest in promoting one competition as Vaughan has consistently done does not carry the same weight as someone who actually does the job of coaching on a day to day basis the teams that compete in the domestic 50 over competition. I very much doubt that Vaughan ever watches the Metro Bank matches given that his focus is on The Hundred.
However, as I keep stressing, had England played 29 ODIs including a five match series in August against the Aussies we would be in a far better position than we are now and playing in the Metro Bank would not have been as important. But the players didn't have those options because of the ECB's flagship competition. I don't think anyone could argue that one. The benefits of making the Metro Bank a first team competition in the true sense of the meaning are separate ones.
BBC has hardly mentioned the hundred and certainly not in any serious negative way.
Two pieces on their website today-
Aggers has just put his assessment on BBC website. No mention of the hundred though does blame the preparation.
Another assesment by BBC sport journalist Mathew Henry mentions the hundred once in his rather long piece on why England did so poorly.
He says...
"But to put the blame solely on the schedule would let a tournament that has been muddled from the outset off the hook.
So too would pointing the finger only at The Hundred."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/67233081
Seems to me they are ignoring the general large consensus that the hundred is and has been a waste of time, money, resources and has become a detriment to the game in this country. Yeah but what about the womens game. Could easily been helped by focusing and promoting the woman's game in the T20 blast.
Nasser Hussain has pleaded with English cricket not to “cop out” and blame Jos Buttler’s team’s dismal World Cup defence on the game’s domestic structure.
England lost to Sri Lanka on Thursday to leave their title defence in tatters with four group matches still to play.
But former England captain Hussain, speaking on Sky, encouraged the game to avoid looking at root and branch review, instead blaming the team’s underperformance on the biggest stage.
“What I don’t like is giving the players a cop out, and I think sometimes we do that in English cricket,” he said. “When they win the 50-over World Cup and they win the 20-over World Cup, ‘aren’t they great, aren’t they brilliant’.
“But when the wheels come off, it’s the structure of English cricket. ‘We’re a disgrace, we play 20-over cricket, we play 100-ball cricket, we don’t play enough 50-over cricket’. How much 50-over domestic cricket has Virat Kohli played, or Heinrich Klaasen or anyone out here? They don’t play domestic, they learn from T20 franchises around the world. That is what has made this great [English] side over the past decade.
All true they learn from T20 franchises/internationals (the blast could of been one of the top versions with investment, obviously won't be as big as IPL) plus ODI. Which both of those players have played more, in competitive matches and alongside their international team mates.
I don't think the hundred is solely responsible for the demise of this England team. All I do know it hasn't helped. Mainly because of when it's being played. (Plus don't sky cover the hundred as well...)