On England's elimination from the World Cup

Whenever a team underperforms in a big tournament, a master narrative of the reasons for failure follows. In England’s case, it is clear. It runs along two axes. First, England’s team management relied excessively on ‘analytics’ to run tactics, selection and strategy. Second, England’s brand of ODI cricket lags one cricketing generation behind today’s top teams. This reference is to England’s batting.

Here is a list of number pairs. The first number is a batsman’s average and the second is strike rate per 100 deliveries in the 2015 World Cup for matches involving only teams which have won at least 2 games. I am writing on the eve of England’s final game.

1. (50.25, 84.8)

2. (39, 78.8)

3. (46.33, 72.8)

4. (111.0, 86.0)

5. (27.3, 83.7)

6. (27.0, 75.0)

7. (40.0, 93.0)

8. (41.3, 101.6)

9. (39, 130)

10. (42, 102.4)

Four of these records belong to English batsmen. Who do the rest belong to? 1, 2, 8 and 9 belong to Root, Bell, Taylor and Buttler. The other six batsmen are Williamson, Guptill, Misbah, Rahane, Clarke and Smith.

Consider the following pairs of bowling average and economy rate for opening bowlers

1. (11.75, 4.14)

2. (12.81, 5.03)

3. (10.40, 3.94)

4. (12.87, 4.12)

5. (15.37, 4.10)

6. (21.14, 4.22)

7. (32.00, 5.33)

8. (38.50, 5.50)

9. (23.42, 6.56)

10. (70.66, 6.55)

11. (98.50, 5.96)

Two of these are English bowlers. The full list – 1. Shami, 2. Southee, 3. Starc, 4. Abbott, 5. Boult, 6. Steyn, 7. Yadav, 8. Irfan, 9. Sohail, 10. Broad, 11. Anderson.

My batting list admittedly involves a sleight of hand. It excludes McCullum, de Villiers, Kohli, Dhawan, Maxwell and Sangakkara – the 6 stand out batsmen so far. Nevertheless, it includes several successful batsmen.

England’s new ball attack failed. Batting wise, number 3 was a problem and Morgan looked out of form and perhaps over-matched on Australian pitches. Apart from these two, England’s batting was reasonably good.

It is not unthinkable for a team to be competitive with two out-of-form batsmen. But it is unthinkable under the current rules (in place since October 2012), that a team with an out-of-form new ball attack can be competitive in Australia. A ‘flat’ pitch in Australia still has good carry, and still allows an accurate, pacy fast bowler to keep batsmen honest. A ‘flat’ pitch in Australia is not like Gwalior.

England have missed an attacking spinner to follow the new ball. An in form Swann might have made a difference. This absence of attacking bowling hurts teams more with the new rules than it did earlier when part-timers could deliver 5 bad overs for 30 runs with 5 on the boundary. Think of South Africa’s problem with their 5th bowler so far. For an orthodox off spinner, here is what the rules mean. With 5 fielders on the boundary, cover, long-off, long-on, mid-wicket and backward-square-leg could all be defended. A bad ball could be kept down to 2, if not a single. With four on the boundary, at least one of these five boundaries is always vacant. A bad bowler is thus much costlier than his counterparts 5 years ago.

Australia struggled because of this against Sri Lanka at Sydney. Xavier Doherty’s game is built for the old fielding rules. Apart from Faulkner and Starc, Australia’s bowling was ordinary and got punished. Sri Lanka struggled even more. Malinga is not as quick as he used to be. Without Herath, their spin attack looked guileless. Senanayake is missing his old bite with his new action. Matthews and Perera lack pace. Toothlessness can be deadly as both Australia and Sri Lanka showed at Sydney. Speed and guile can be deadly too.

Did England have batsmen to replace Ballance and Morgan? They didn’t. England’s refusal to select Alex Hales has been the most talked about selection matter of the tournament. Much has been made of the fact that Hales is ranked the World’s No. 3 T20 batsman. This is an irrelevant data point. All successful World Cup batsmen are excellent first class or Test players with the ability to construct innings. The best ODI batsmen are not simply hitters who can ‘tee off’ (see Gayle, Christopher H.). Against bowlers who can threaten your wicket, good defense and the ability to play late for the single are essentials. Dhawan, Rahane, Kohli, Williamson, Smith etc. have this ability. I can’t think of a single top ODI batsman who was not a high quality Test or First Class player. Even Maxwell’s First Class average is 42 playing in Australia. Hales averages 37. Compare his List A record with that of Gary Ballance, and suddenly the choice between the two is not as lopsided as it seemed. Ravi Bopara is not particularly strong either. Bopara has already played 119 ODIs with indifferent results. Its rare for players with a record like Bopara’s to produce a radically different record for the next 40 games.

Peter Moores was basically right. Its quite easy to see that England didn’t have clear options. Since the Bell-Cook-Strauss-KP generation of 2005-06 how many successful Test batsmen have England had with the exception of Jonathan Trott? I can only think of one – Joe Root, and he’s doing fine in ODIs. England have gotten away with it at home against bad attacks like India in 2014 (even there England lost a Test), there hasn’t been a single stand out batting talent. What of bowlers? Anderson and Broad are masters in England and mask this problem, but can you think of a single new English bowler in the last 5 years who looks like he’ll take 300 Test wickets?

ODI cricket has changed, but not in the way most English critics think. The fielding restrictions create boundary opportunities which quality batsmen can exploit. I bet that Allan Lamb or David Gower would flourish with these rules. Setting fields to concede one off most bad balls is no longer possible. The cost of bad bowling (and the benefit of good bowling) is much greater. Bowlers who can do something with the ball (pace, swing, turn, variations) and bowl accurately are more valuable than ever before.

England should have been competitive despite a couple of their batsmen being out of form. They had a nightmare with the new ball. It may take Maxwell or de Villiers or McCullum to win the World Cup, but it should be possible to compete without unorthodox genius. Those players thrive because their teammates put them in positions from where they can make merry. Clarke and Smith provided Maxwell with this platform against Sri Lanka. If England’s bowlers had been reasonably competitive, England might have chased 275 instead of 340 against Australia and Jos Buttler might have made it happen.

England’s supporters and critics, much like India’s supporters and critics have tended to do recently, see the bowling as one of many small problems. This has led them to perpetrate the rather puzzling idea that 300 is a par score. It isn’t. As a target, 300 has been too hard or too easy in the World Cup, but never competitive. This suggests that whether or not it is chased is a function of how well it is defended. West Indies and England defended it poorly. A par score implies that a win and a loss are roughly equally likely.

Results by first innings score for matches involving top 8 Test teams since October 1, 2012
First Innings Score	Matches	Wins	Losses	Tie	No Result
0 to 199	36	5	26	0	5
200 to 224	23	9	13	0	1
225 to 249	29	5	21	2	1
250 to 274	31	15	16	0	0
275 to 299	28	18	8	0	2
300 to 309	17	12	4	0	1
310 to 319	9	8	0	1	0
320 to 349	15	14	1	0	0
350 or more	15	13	2	0	0

3 out of 4 teams which made between 300 and 310 in this World Cup have won. All four teams which made more than 310 have won. Since Oct 2012, the record suggests that all things being equal, a par score is about 270. 300 is still a winning score. Conditions matter.  The wickets in Australia or New Zealand reward good bowling. After all, top wicket takers in the tournament have been new ball bowlers. Inaccurate, patchy bowling gets hammered. The field restrictions guarantee this. It is probably true that England didn’t have the squad to win the World Cup. But they couldn’t compete because their bowling failed.