An artist once wrote a lyric that said “Never trust an elevator if it rises fast, it can’t last” Perhaps the lyric most resonates with England’s quick rise and fall in recent times. The defending champions are now in such a state, you can’t help but be sorry for them. Quick success struck, and England is now lovesick for a template it once proudly claimed. England took all their chances and it worked for as long as luck would allow it. When the English players were in the thick of their success, they knew that the dangerous, always on the offence, template they had created could very well blow up in their faces. And now with 4 out of 5 losses in their World Cup campaign, with every possible permutation and combination, the team has been checkmated. The only way out is out.
Many memes, defeats and press conferences later. England skipper Jos Buttler has admitted that he’s in shock with the way things have panned out for the team.
WHY WON’T ENGLAND LEARN FROM THEIR MISTAKES?
Nothing but credit to the English team and management for the way they internalised their attacking approach. It takes guts to completely reject the idea of cricket the way everyone plays it. Credit to the captains who were not afraid of the backlash that would come their way if their plan went horribly sideways. But it also takes guts to realise that somewhere along the way their template stopped giving them the results they desired. The team as well as the management seems to be in denial and refuses to play any sort of adaptive cricket. It’s all about going out there and playing like it’s your last day on planet Earth.
If you were to look at the way the English batting lineup collapsed against Sri Lanka, it’s quite clear that the batters were all about “If we’re going to go out, might as well go out in glory”. No one seemed to slow down even if the wickets were crumbling. The fact that 6 out of 11 batters were outcaught says a lot about the mindset of the English batters.
THE HUNDRED: A CATALYSER?
After England’s controversial win over New Zealand in the 2019 ODI World Cup, the domestic structure of England cricket drastically changed as One Day tournaments were taken with a grain of salt. With the rising popularity and success of T20 franchise leagues around the world, players were focusing on the idea of playing less cricket and earning more money (you can’t blame them for doing that). ODIs were slowly becoming irrelevant.
As if the many T20 franchise leagues weren’t enough, England was coming up with its own version of a short but aggressive format: The Hundred. ECB was going all out to promote the 100-ball franchise league, at the expense of other tournaments and formats. Credit to the England management once again because it wasn’t all about The Hundreds and the Vitality Blasts. Red ball cricket too was given a lot of priority and somewhere along the way, ODIs were forgotten.
Did all these factors then contribute to England’s sudden downward spiral? Only time will tell. But like Jos Buttler said, “You don’t become a bad player overnight, you don’t become a bad team overnight”. The England team has risen from the dead before and they could very well do it again. It’s all about the timing.