There is less than a year to go until the next major tournament, the Twenty20 World Cup, and there is no doubt every international outfit will have an eye on taking that trophy home.
English cricket is the focus of cricket news all around the world for all things except their play on the field. It makes me wonder whether England have a chance of winning that coveted trophy next year in India.
It shouldn’t be a surprise that very few are predicting an England win. But why?
The England and Wales Cricket Board are putting individual differences ahead of the team (The Kevin Pietersen saga being the prime example), and this is a sign that not everything is right with the ECB at the moment. There are also a few very clear indicators that would support England having very little chance next year.
Ambiguous strategy for building domestic competency
The English plans for nurturing the newest form of cricket have been bizarre right from the advent of the T20 game, and the frequent changes in the domestic T20 format would support this.
There have been three formats that we have seen – T20 cup, Friends life T20 and the latest addition, the T20 blast. I feel that despite having the best examples in the world, the Indian Premier League and Big Bash League, they have ended up nowhere by comparison.
The ECB would have two clear goals; revenue and to develop T20 talent but clearly they haven’t been very successful. The example of Alex Hales leaving to join Mumbai Indians in the last leg of IPL instead of playing in the English domestic T20 is very awkward.
The ECB has let down the English game by allowing some of its most attractive players to miss games.
With the decision to rest English players from the opening round games, against the original understanding with the counties, it meant that many of the most “box office” names in English cricket such as Alex Hales, Jos Buttler and Eoin Morgan, have been allowed to go absent when they could have played a role in the resurgence of the sport.
All this from a country which once was reluctant to change its schedule to accommodate for the IPL. Even the scheduling of the current T20 league is troubling.
It is hard to avoid the suspicion that not everyone in English cricket is pulling in the same direction, and with a lack of quality preparation is is hard to tell who the ECB might pick in their 30-member national squad.
Momentum
England does not play enough international T20 cricket.
They won their last full series in 2013 against New Zealand and won their last match back in September 2014 against India.
They will only be playing five matches until the World Cup as per the latest calendar released by the ECB: one match in Old Trafford against New Zealand in June 2015, one against Australia at Cardiff in September 2015, one T20 match against Pakistan in September in the Middle-East and two matches against South Africa in South Africa.
Where is the batting firepower?
Every major contender has an X-factor in their batting line up who can change the game in an over or two.
Many of the oppositions plans focus around one batsman who could take the game away from the opposition at will. For instance, Australia has Glenn Maxwell, South Africa has Abraham Benjamin de Villiers, West Indies have Chris Gayle and India has Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
But who fits in the scheme for England? Morgan or Hales? Does Joe Root have that firepower? None of these names give you an affirmative yes.
Who will be their star bowler?
England have a good bowling unit with James Anderson, Stuart Broad, Steven Finn, Chris Jordan and spinners James Tredwell and Moen Ali. We all saw their performance in the recent World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
Indian conditions during the World Cup will not be much different from what we saw in the recent IPL. Spinners will be of prime importance and Ali might just work only against India, they need to find quick solutions here too.
Who’s the all-rounder?
Teams who have won World Cups or have done well have had good all-rounders.
It was Yuvraj Singh and Irfan Pathan for India in the first T20 World Cup, Shahid Afridi, Shoaib Mailk and Abdur Razzak for Pakistan, Marlon Samuels for the West Indies, Shane Watson for Australia and even Paul Collingwood for England.
Ravi Bopara or Chris Woakes would do it for England this time, but are they good enough?
Bench strength
What is the bench strength of English T20 cricket?
Do they have good cricketers to fill all three essentials – batting, bowling and all-rounders? That’s not to mention the importance of fielding in the modern game.
There are only 17 players who have been tried out in the past year for T20 internationals.
Players like Gary Ballance, Ben Stokes and Adil Rashid are promising but don’t have enough T20 exposure.
Coach and support staff
No one is sure of what is going around here, but it looks it will be fixed in the next few days. Will the new staff have enough time in their hands to bring together a World Cup winning team? Only time will tell.
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