Going into England’s World Cup clash against Sri Lanka the reigning world champions’ early defeats to New Zealand, Afghanistan and South Africa leave them on the brink of a painfully early exit.
Both head coach Matthew Mott and 2019 World Cup winner Joe Root blamed England’s lackluster start to their World Cup preparations. ing. “I wish we had six months to slowly work through things as a group,” Root said after the loss to South Africa.
In the six months leading up to the World Cup, ODI cricket was mostly behind the scenes, with the thrilling home Ashes series taking center stage. In fact, from the tour to Bangladesh in March to the four-match ODI series against New Zealand in September, England never played an ODI. Certainly not ideal preparation for a global event, but how does it compare to England’s main rivals at the World Cup?
Comparing the six teams expected to compete for a place in the semi-finals at the start of the tournament (India, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan and England), five of them played a similar number of matches. A four-year cycle leading up to the 2023 World Cup. While India leads with 66 matches, all the other five countries have played between 36 and 44 matches. In fact, her 42 game tally for England is quite good compared to most of her rivals.
With the creation of new franchise leagues in the four years between World Cups, India has the competitive advantage of securing a more bilateral ODI cricket schedule. Indian players are not allowed to participate in his T20 tournaments outside of the IPL, which theoretically improves their availability throughout the year. While Rohit Sharma has only played for India and Mumbai Indians, Jos Buttler has represented England, Lancashire, Manchester Originals, Rajasthan Royals and Pearl Royals in the last year. England are also the busiest Test team in the world, as Root himself pointed out after the defeat to South Africa. In the four years between World Cups, England played 17 more Tests than India and Australia, 25 more than New Zealand, 26 more than Pakistan and 28 more than South Africa.
The real difference between England and their rivals is the number of games played by the players who participated in the World Cup. Of England’s five ODI series in the run-up to the World Cup, only the four-match series against New Zealand in September was played at full strength, with several players missing out on ODI cricket ahead of the world tournament. Became. cup. Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Mark Wood, Chris Woakes and Harry Brook all played in fewer than 10 ODIs in his two years leading up to the tournament.
Among the top six teams in the ODI world rankings, England players have played the fewest ODIs in the 2019-2023 World Cup cycle.
Frankly, they were poorly prepared for the World Cup. The team he has always enjoyed chasing entered the World Cup, but in his two years leading up to the tournament, he had only managed to come from behind once with a full squad. The extensive complexities surrounding increasingly compact calendars make it difficult to create a comprehensive schedule that accommodates the needs of all three formats, but decision-makers (and players) are completely free. It does not mean that. Firstly, it was still less than a year ago that Root opted to play in the ILT20 rather than the ODI series against South Africa, saying: He has a good understanding of how to play in ODIs. I really want to develop my white-ball game and if I could add anything to my 50-over game it would be to play more T20 cricket. ”
One of the advantages of this World Cup format is that early slumps are not fatal. For example, Australia started with two consecutive losses, but it looks like they have a good chance of advancing to the semi-finals. In theory, there is plenty of time to recover from a bad start. However, in reality, this time quickly shortens.
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