Thumping Australia: Once lazy technicians, England have come of age as a ODI side

England were once too gentle to play cricket’s 50-over format. From the super slow days of Sir Jeffrey Boycott in the 1970s to the misapplication of Mike Gatting in the 1980s to the failure of absorbing pressure in the 1990s, the inventors of the game found the bar being raised every time. The English perhaps tried to play the 50-over format more bookishly even as the rest of the world went ahead, innovating and improvising.

Despite being one of the oldest teams to play the sport, England could never win the 50-over World Cup despite playing it at home as many as four times and also lost the Champions Trophy final twice on their own land – in 2004 and 2013.

For observers, the team played it too predictably and had an outdated approach – gradually build an innings of 230-240 and then hope for the best. It is not that England did not win series’ or trophies all these years but their success on a global stage was far too little. And they hit the bottom on being knocked out of the group stages of World Cup in 2015 by Bangladesh – not among the best in world cricket.

In that fateful game, England collapsed to 260 from 238 for 6, falling short of the target by 15 runs, and extracted the reaction of “pathetic” from legendary all-rounder Sir Ian Botham.

England have won 10 out of 13 bilateral series since 2015 WC debacle

However, things have taken a complete U-turn since that game for England cricket. In the very next match that the English played after their disastrous World Cup campaign which was against New Zealand at home, the hosts plundered 408 runs in their 50 overs, annihilating the opponents and World Cup finalists New Zealand by 210 runs!

Starting from that day to their dominance in the current ODI series versus Australia who just bulldozed them in a Test series, England’s 50-over cricket has seen a renaissance of a sort and there is every possibility of them fulfilling their cherished dream of winning the world title – at home next year.

Since the debacle in the 2015 World Cup, England have played 13 bilateral series (one against Ireland was abandoned) and they have won 10 of them (including the latest against Australia), losing closely only to Australia, South Africa and India. They, however, did not succeed in the Champions Trophy played at home in 2017, losing to eventual champions Pakistan, but for a change, the failure was eclipsed by the success which is a good thing to have happened for English cricket.

Englishmen’s mindset on ODI cricket has changed

Now, what has made this welcome change possible in England cricket? The first factor is definitely a change of mindset. Earlier, England’s one-day cricket featured lazy action from burly gentlemen who were more worried about their techniques than the runs on board.

Imagine, the two high individual scores by England in ODIs earlier (167 not out by Robin Smith and 158 by David Gower) didn’t even take the team to a total of 300 runs! And compare it with the Indians who had displayed a shocking ODI performance scoring 132 runs in 60 overs with the great Sunil Gavaskar playing for a draw in their first-ever World Cup game. India are one of the best ODI sides today with one of its opening batsmen Rohit Sharma having three double hundreds to his credit in this format!

England took time to evolve in ODIs

England haven’t evolved in the ODI format all these years. One reason could be they were too conservative to accept the changes that the 50-over format brought to the game. No England batsman has played 200 ODI games yet (197 by Paul Collingwood is the highest so far) even though the team has been playing it since 1971 (total ODI games played by England at the time of writing this piece is 700 which is seventh most).

In terms of most runs scored in ODIs, England are yet to reach the 6,000 run club and their highest run gatherer Eoin Morgan (5,846) is ranked 58th on the global list. Even Bangladesh’s Tamim Iqbal has more scores than him.

Again, England’s most successful ODI bowler James Anderson is placed 20th on the all-time list with 269 scalps in 194 games, which shows how ordinary is the Englishmen’s focus on the ODI format.

Jason Roy slammed a 180 the other day against Australia, making it the highest individual score in ODI by an England batsman but when we place it in the world list, 22 batsmen already have crossed it.

It looks far better than Smith’s 167 off 163 which was the highest for a long time to come (though an ordinary strike rate by today’s standards) but yet England have to cover a long distance in the ODI format to shake up the cricketing world.

‘Hit it out of park’ is what new age England believes in

But the sleeping giants have woken up eventually and this was possible due to the new approach that they adopted: whacking the ball instead of playing the game theoretically. This is the second factor which has made England’s fortunes in ODIs shine of late. England now have the record of the highest team total in ODIs (444 for 3 against Pakistan) besides the 408 for 9 against New Zealand and a number of high 300s.

This brings us to the next point which is the emergence of a new breed of England batsmen who care less about what their predecessors would think and focus on just belting the leather. The likes of Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Jason Roy, Alex Hales, Johny Bairstow, Jos Buttler besides the experienced Eoin Morgan have turned England into an explosive ODI side.

These young Turks are fearless and don’t bother about the opponents’ name and records. It would have taken a heart for England to turn on the tables after the hammering they received in Tests. But they did it in style and could hand over a whitewash to the world champions in their den. The striking part with England’s new-age batsmen is that they do not only score big centuries, they also do it with incredible strike rates.

England have a win ratio of 1.75 since the 2015 World Cup, which is second best to Australia’s 2.13 and their journey could have just started as their new pillars of strength are mostly young.

The 2010 T20 World Cup title perhaps did the trick

England did not focus a great deal on the 50-over format and kept on losing one WC final after another but lifting the World T20 in 2010 in the West Indies did them a favour by getting used to the new format. Till then, England looked a rusty side (Stuart Broad getting whacked for 6 sixes by Yuvraj Singh worsened their image as a limited-over side) but the 2010 victory that came riding the shoulders of exciting batters like Kevin Pietersen, Craig Kieswetter, Paul Collingwood, Luke Wright and others gave England a foundation to build their structure.

Now whether they can turn that structure into an empire, we will have to wait till 2019.