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Twelve months ago, England – as I’m sure you’ll all remember – made a complete pig’s ear of the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
In a format that had the group stage as little more than the chance to get a good sun tan, with a quarter-final place almost served up on a shiny silver salver, Eoin Morgan and his merry men produced an effort which, had this country had a propaganda ministry, would’ve been struck from the records quicker than it takes Donald Trump to say something idiotic/racist/inflammatory/xenophobic/uninformed (I could go on) at a political rally.
Hammered by Australia, annihilated by New Zealand, shoved out of the way by Sri Lanka and mocked by Bangladesh, England added another chapter to their encyclopaedia of limited-overs infamy, which was already fairly chock-a-block.
There were victories against Scotland and Afghanistan but beating your kids at swingball in the back garden can be claimed as a triumph if you’re really of that persuasion.
It was dismal and, in the age of taking positives, there wasn’t even a decently browned face among the downtrodden players when they emerged sheepishly through the Heathrow arrivals gate.
Fast forward to now and the transformation has been little short of remarkable. So dramatic has the change from easy beats to gung-ho mavericks been, had they been Russian athletes the drug testers would be preparing the urine pots with undue haste.
This weekend, Morgan will lead his adopted country into their second World T20 final, and I would bet good money I’m not the only person who can scarcely believe what has occurred.
In the style many a football manager would happily kill for, the Irishman has managed to reign over a complete shambles and a potentially world-conquering outfit in the space of a year.
He did well not to go the way of Peter Moores post-World Cup given the insipid nature of his charges’ performances, and for all the criticism Andrew Strauss received upon his appointment as England’s director of cricket – ‘jobs for the boys’ and all that – his decision to stick with his limited-overs captain is worthy of a nice big tick on the ledger sheet.
Despite the fact his batting veers wildly between nothing short of sensational and sensationally short of nothing, Morgan has proved to worthy of a place for his captaincy. It may not be in the Mark Taylor stakes for tactical acumen, but he has led the alteration in approach from the very front and, importantly, stuck to his guns.
It goes without saying he could do with some runs as a place in the top four looks increasingly undeserved, but he has shown what he can do on plenty of occasions in the past and to start to doubt one of the roots just as it is beginning to bear fruit wouldn’t lead to anything good.
Cricket teams who are sure of who they are and what they’re doing have the captain as the first name on the teamsheet and that is how it should be here.
It is all too easy for a style to revert back to type when the road becomes a bit on the rocky side and such a method is, by definition, laden with risks that lean away from consistency, but England have stayed true to their new-found principles. Their reward is the opportunity to claim World T20 trophy number two.
The likelihood is they’ll still be the underdogs in Kolkata, regardless of who they’re facing, but already in this tournament they have come from nowhere to beat South Africa, defend a sub-standard score against Afghanistan, hold their nerve when the Sri Lankans appeared favourites, and got the better – rather comfortably at that – of the form horses in New Zealand.
Having suffered an opening defeat to a Chris Gayle-inspired West Indies, every game has had the edge of being a knockout tie and, if nothing else, that they have managed to string together four wins on the bounce shows a side who are continuing to laugh in the face of expectation.
Much in the way expectation did the same to them the last time a global tournament was staged.