England’s World Cup campaign — and what they hoped would be a proud defence of the trophy they won so memorably in 2019 — has in effect ended just over three weeks after it began, and with 16 days still to go before the group stage is complete. The scale of the debacle has left onlookers searching for reasons why. Here are some of the principal factors.
The lost aura
England arrived in India as champions and were fancied to make the semi-finals, but in a brief period they have become the No One is Scared of Us XI. For years, they went into most series as favourites; they played like favourites and the opposition treated them as such. But other sides have caught them up and the deference has gone. That was clear from how New Zealand swept them aside in the opening game of the tournament. Other sides took note, walking taller and playing better when they came up against England, whose self-belief began to falter.
Ben Stokes
We will never quite know whether Ben Stokes coming out of retirement for this tournament was a good idea because he picked up an early hip injury and was never quite the same again. He missed three games and was a shadow of himself in the two he played; he scored 43 against Sri Lanka but looked as rusty as an old gate. It was understandable that Jos Buttler wanted him involved, but once Stokes said he was only available as a batsman his value diminished, whatever the management said about his inspirational qualities. In fact, it was hard to balance the side with him in it.
Jos Buttler’s captaincy
Buttler has credit in the bank — only last year he led England to glory in the T20 World Cup — but is still relatively new to the white-ball captaincy. He made a number of tactical and strategic errors. Above all, he seemed unsure of what his best XI was, and this sense of uncertainty probably transmitted itself to the players. The omission of Reece Topley, who would prove to be the best bowler before his injury, for the opener against New Zealand left the seam attack light and in the space of three games England jettisoned four all-rounders that featured in that game. He should have batted first against Afghanistan and especially against South Africa in Mumbai’s sweltering weather conditions.
Jonny Bairstow and Dawid Malan as openers
England made a big call before the tournament by dropping Jason Roy for Dawid Malan as Jonny Bairstow’s opening partner. Roy’s inability to get on the field in the home games against New Zealand weakened the argument for his retention but a lot of England’s energy came from the Bairstow-Roy alliance.
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The dynamics shifted too; Bairstow often breezed along in Roy’s slipstream but now he needed to make more of the running, which he seemed reluctant to do when he spoke in Mumbai about laying platforms for the middle order. The openers put on 115 in the only win against Bangladesh but outside that game Malan scored 80 runs in four innings while Bairstow is averaging 25.40.
Chris Woakes and Sam Curran
England struggled badly to dictate terms in the bowling power-plays. Chris Woakes, the attack leader in terms of experience, was especially awry against New Zealand and Afghanistan and once the opposition got off to a flyer it was hard to rein things in. Sam Curran was no less culpable and the upshot was that both players were dropped after three games, leaving the management searching for ways to field a balanced attack. Woakes had again been found out by Asian conditions, while Curran’s future as an ODI player, if not a T20 one, looks highly uncertain.
Overthinking things
India is a tricky place to play, but England appeared to make things even more complicated with the way they chopped and changed their XIs according to the venues they found themselves at, and also opted to bowl second against Afghanistan in anticipation of dew that never arrived. Rob Key, the managing director of England’s men cricket, conceded this week: “We’ve probably overthought conditions. We’ve focused on whether the dew is going to come down, whether it’s going to be a turner, whether it’s a 230-pitch [or] a 350-pitch… they’re the things we haven’t got right.”
Enjoyment factor
England insist they are a happy camp, and it feels like that looking on from close quarters, but their sense of fun seems to desert them on the field. Moeen Ali has said they have lost some of the sense of enjoyment and the spark that came from taking down opposition bowlers. This has a lot to do with winning and losing, but perhaps also because they are an older group of players who may not see their futures together after this tournament, and the fragmentation process is already under way. Life with the white-ball teams may also seem tame fare compared with the Bazball vibes around the Test set-up.
Lack of preparation
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.
