World Cup calamity: five ways forward for England in ODI cricket

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2015/mar/10/world-cup-calamity-five-ways-forward-england-odi

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Reassess the management setup

The shock waves from the 5-0 Ashes defeat to Australia in 2013-14 are still being felt and the resulting regime of the coach, Peter Moores, and the managing director, Paul Downton, looks stalled already. For all his backers – and there remain many – Moores has, in an unprecedented second spell, failed to demonstrate that as the “outstanding coach of his generation” he can cut it at international level. Downton has failed to garner any public confidence, instead attracting swathes of detractors on both sides of the divide over his handling of the Kevin Pietersen affair. With the ECB under new stewardship in the form of the chief executive, Tom Harrison, and the incoming chairman, Colin Graves, the onus is on the leadership team to breathe fresh life into England rather than accept failure as part of a rolling and seemingly never-ending cycle of so-called development.

Look up from Twenty20, not down from Test cricket

England have, to date, run the 50-over side with a closer alignment to the Test side than their Twenty20 equivalent. Take the appointment of Alastair Cook as one-day captain, which he assumed from Andrew Strauss following the 2011 World Cup despite three caps in the three years that preceded it. Power has been at the forefront of this World Cup, with Australia’s Glenn Maxwell, scorer of the second fastest century in the tournament’s history, a prime example of how Twenty20 is throwing up players whose ability to strike the ball outweighs fears over their technical ability. It is telling that England have dithered over Alex Hales, despite two years of sitting in the top three of the Twenty20 rankings and a star showing at the World T20 last April, but were more than happy to parachute Gary Ballance into the World Cup side on the back of a successful summer in the Test arena.

Greater intensity in the domestic game

Last season’s switch to a 50-over format, up from 40, brought the county one-day game in line with international cricket. But with 18 teams to accommodate across three formats, the Royal London Cup, when it comes to the priorities of a club, naturally comes third behind the exhaustive but prestigious County Championship and the commercially more successful NatWest T20 Blast. The lack of intensity on display in the tournament, it could be argued, is therefore failing to equip players for when they take the step up to international level, irrespective of how many overs are being played. All three competitions, from a cricketing perspective, would surely benefit from a less-is-more approach.

Spot the trends

Going into the World Cup it seemed every nation – bar England – recognised how the fielding restrictions would lend themselves to 35 overs of high intensity but relatively risk-free batting, followed by a late surge. The result? Monster scores. Sticking 100-plus runs on the board in the last 10 overs has far outweighed the benefit of getting off to a flyer, and yet in the spirit of Sri Lanka circa 1996 England have sent Moeen Ali out over the top with the instructions to attack with full impunity, an approach that paid off only once, against Scotland. Given the ICC’s constant tinkering with the 50-over one-day format, expect the way the 2019 World Cup is played to be different once more. England will, once more, need to get with the times.

Stop barking up the wrong trees

If England’s inglorious group stage exit in 2015 has taught us anything, it is that previous inept World Cup campaigns were not, as we were told, caused by the gruelling Ashes series that preceded them but rather a fundamental failure to grasp the evolution of the 50-over game. A winter of white-ball cricket was not so much a launchpad for a successful tournament as a total confidence shredder. But now, in the latest post-mortem, we are being told by Downton that inexperience is the real reason why Eoin Morgan’s men failed. Don’t believe it. In the four years between World Cups, England have played the same number of one-dayers as the tournament favourites, Australia, using nine fewer players. England also boast six players who played in the previous World Cup, compared with Australia’s four.