A clear horizon?
With the tour of Bangladesh complete, England will now not play another ODI for six months. So what's the state of the game?
Four years ago, there was a single mission in English cricket. Australia were in town, all the buzz was about an exciting young player about to make his debut, revenge was on the cards for the 4-0 hammering dished out Down Under and - what do you mean, World Cup?
Ah yes. The north star of English cricket between 2015 and 2019 was not (for once) Test cricket’s oldest rivalry, but the tournament most England fans tended to consider uncouth and beneath their notice, not that that stopped it being a rod with which to beat the team when they failed. Yes, the biggest name in town was Eoin Morgan rather than Joe Root, and the trophy they persued was a huge metal construction rather than a tiny wooden urn.
And persue it, Morgan’s men did. There was the obligatory mid-tournament wobble, the final that looked lost at more than one stage, but ultimately England finished up World Champions, albeit by the barest of all margins.
So, what next for the men in blue? Well, nobody really knew. Morgan carried on another couple of years, through the disruption of the pandemic, as England lost a tournament many expected them to win (the 2021 T20 World Cup), then won one they had been expected to lose under the stewardship of Jos Buttler (the 2022 T20 World Cup). But the single-mindedness with which England became the best ODI team in the world feels like it’s been missing since that glorious July day at Lord’s.
A Damp Squib
The newly-crowned World Champions were beaten comfortably in their first game after donning their new crown, going down meekly by seven wickets to South Africa. Less than half that team had played the World Cup final, and they took a comfortable but not convincing win in the third ODI, after the second match was washed out. England knew their side would have to transition over the coming four years, leaving out Liam Plunkett (never to play for England again) and blooding players like Tom Banton, the Curran brothers and Matt Parkinson during the series. The hunt for that best XI has continued up to today.
Of course, the intervention of COVID-19 at the close of the South Africa tour meant that cricket was somewhat disrupted for the next couple of years. Summer series in 2020 against Australia and Ireland eventually went ahead behind closed doors, but the winter tour of South Africa was postponed (eventually played in early 2023 - and you can read my preview of the series here) as the new Super League kicked off.
Now England have finished their Super League commitments and rounded off their white-ball tour of Bangladesh, let’s take a look at the state of play.
So, where are England now?
Well, not all that sorted, really. Six months out from the last World Cup, the side was pretty settled - almost the only question was whether England were going to exchange the left-arm angle of David Willey for the unknown raw pace of Jofra Archer (recently qualified for England and storming the Australian Big Bash). Archer made his debut in the pre-tournament series against Pakistan, duly took two wickets in as many games and was selected for the main event. The rest, as they say, is history.
At the top
This time around… well. I wrote before the South Africa series that there was a big question mark over the future of Jason Roy, but hundreds in that series and against Bangladesh seem to have cemented him at the top of the order, to be joined by Jonny Bairstow when the Yorkshireman recovers from injury.
Dawid Malan has filled the ‘Root’ role - a number three anchor capable of rotating the strike and scoring quickly when needed - with aplomb, but is probably competing with Root and Brook for the two slots available at three and four - will England want to fill one of those places with a slower scorer like Malan? He does have weight of runs behind him, while Root and Brook haven’t featured in the winter ODIs but their form in Tests (and Brook’s in the pre-World Cup T20s in Pakistan) stake a hell of a claim.
Middle-order headaches
Butter, you imagine, will slot in at number five, which leaves six, seven and eight up for grabs. Moeen Ali’s future looks increasingly uncertain as his poor returns with the bat continue - he hasn’t made an ODI hundred for six years(!) with a top score of 51 in that time and averages for the last three years in the mid-20s. His returns with the ball are diminishing, too - in 2018 he claimed 29 wickets; he has just 21 since then, coming at an average of 68.5. There’s pressure from players like Will Jacks and Liam Livingstone, who are more explosive with the bat and bowl handy spin; Sam Curran didn’t feature in 2019 and is a true all-rounder; and even Joe Root can toss a few up when need be.1 I love Moeen, for his character, the beauty of his batting and the understated class of his bowling; but his returns are just not World Champion material. There's a saying in sport - he's earned the right to decide when to go. Nobody deserves that more than Mo, a tireless and often unthanked servant of the game who's given us so many memories. But that saying is only true up to a point. Eoin Morgan is another who earned that right - and he availed himself of it, retiring between twin T20 World Cups to give the team the best shot in 2022. Remaining in the team would have been detrimental to their shot at the tournament. For me, Moeen should do the same this year.
If he doesn’t, though, will England be ruthless?
I’d love to see them go into the World Cup with Rashid as a frontline spinner, and Livingstone, Root and Jacks finding ten overs between them. England’s batting would be better and their bowling probably no worse off; if one of the three takes some tap in their first two overs, the others can pick up an extra over each to cover the ten.
The other big question-mark in the middle order is England’s 2019 talisman - the bloke who dragged them, kicking and screaming, over the line when they seemed determined to stuff it up. Ben Stokes is the Test captain now, and claims to have retired from ODI cricket - though head coach Matthew Mott still wants him in the squad. If Stokes does come back, it should be as a straight swap for Moeen Ali, and it would make filling that fifth bowler role much easier. But England shouldn’t count on it - Stokes’ mind must be on the Ashes.
Bowling
The good news for England is that Adil Rashid is fit and bowling as well as ever. You won’t win a World Cup in India without at least one world-class spinner, but he needs other spinners around him. That’s why I’d play at least two of Root, Jacks and Livingstone. Get them as much bowling as you can in the pre-tournament series, put them under pressure and see what happens - if they can eat up ten quick overs between them, England will be in a great spot.
They have express pace, too - Mark Wood and Jofra Archer fit and firing will be critical. Chris Woakes can back them up when needed, and Sam Curran brings that left-arm angle and variety that’s so important, as well as solid death bowling. If Ben Stokes does reconsider his international retirement, all the better - there’s a solid fifth bowler who probably wouldn’t need to bowl all ten overs, and he’s capable of reversing it, too.
With all this in mind, the team I’d like to see for England’s tournament opener is:
Bairstow
Roy
Malan/Brook
Root
Buttler
Livingstone
Jacks/Stokes2
Sam Curran
Rashid
Wood
Archer
There are question marks here. This whole idea is dependent on Moeen either retiring or being dropped (at least from the starting XI). Stokes’ future is still up in the air. Will England want to play both Root and Malan? If not, who gets dropped, and who comes in? What fitness concerns will there be in six months?
There are some answers, at least
Before the start of England’s winter ODI campaigns, I posed the following questions. Many of them are now answered.
Will England’s aggressive batsmen come off again? Yes, to an extent. This wasn’t a full run-out, due to the absences of Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow, but Butter and Roy made runs. Malan often batted slower, but played some fabulous innings that allowed the others to swing their arms.
Can Jason Roy put his continued struggles behind him? Absolutlely. He wasn’t always as convincing as he might have liked to be, but two hundreds in six games away from home is nothing to sniff at.
Will Harry Brook make the middle order his own, as in Tests and T20 (and score some runs outside Pakistan, while he’s at it)? Not yet, although he hit a classy 80 against South Africa and missed the Bangladesh series because he was off scoring runs for the Test team.
Is Jofra Archer going to replicate the pace like fire we saw in 2019? Oh yes. And what a lot of fun it is watching him bowl.
You can read my article previewing the winter and setting these questions out here:
What questions remain?
The key questions England need to answer over the summer are:
The number 3 and 4 slots. Do Root and Malan play together? If not, which is dropped and who comes in to replace him? My gut feeling is Malan should bat at 3 and Root should come in at 4 with a licence to hit.
The future of Moeen Ali. Will he retire? If not, do England take the plunge and drop him?
The future of Ben Stokes. Will he un-retire? If he does, where does he slot into the side?
The balance of the side. The answer depends heavily on Ali’s future, but the question remains the same - how many front-line spinners do you play? How many part-timers? Do you go with three seamers or four?
The good news is England have some time to think on these. They don’t play another ODI until September 8th, against New Zealand. But they’d better go into that game with a decent idea of the answers, because there aren’t many games left to find solutions.
Click the friendly blue button above to find out what England’s answers end up being, as well as getting access to upcoming posts on the County Championship and analysis of the Ireland Test and the Ashes.
Actually, while Root’s only got four ODI scalps since 2019, they’ve come at a cost of 131 runs, or 32.74 each - less than half Moeen’s average. I know, sample sizes, but that’s not a pretty stat for Mo
Stokes comes in for Jacks without a doubt if he decides he wants to play