New coach Matthew Mott is already facing the music – and opener Jason Roy is facing the axe – after England's white-ball meltdown this summer.
Mott called Sunday's feeble 90-run defeat by South Africa at the Ageas Bowl a “line-in-the-sand moment” after 12 games in 24 days where England lost three limited-over series and drew the other. Hit by World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan's retirement, and Test skipper Ben Stokes standing down from 50-over cricket, Mott admitted he had been “trying to put band aids over a few little cracks.”
England now have just seven games in Pakistan next month to rediscover a winning formula before the T20 world cup in Australia this autumn – with the batting unit, and Roy's damaging loss of form, prominent among their concerns. Roy has looked a tortured soul, cobbling together 76 runs from 98 balls in six innings, and Mott hinted that his credit was running low.
He said: “That's the one that we, as a selection group, you really need to thrash out and I think the end of this series, we sit down and you've got to mount the pros and cons for all this sort of stuff. When you've been a great player, and you've delivered great things on a big stage, I think you deserve a bit of loyalty. And I've always believed that, in great teams, different types of players fire and they miss out.
“You can hold that for a bit, and you get some currency from having delivered on the big stage - but at certain times, hard decisions need to be made. Young players come in and add energy, and we have two players (Phil Salt and Harry Brook) on the sidelines, they are chomping at the bit for a game and I think that's really healthy.
“So that they've now got an opportunity to go back to the Hundred, get a mountain of runs, keep putting pressure on and be ready for when that opportunity does come. It's about making good decisions at the right times - it's not that no-one in the team has mortgage on a spot. The nature of cricket suggests that at different times, players come in and out of form.
“There's a bit of science behind it. But there's also a bit of gut feeling. I like to think if you try and breed confidence in in a playing group, if you stick more than you flick, then you have a better chance of reading that confidence.”
Australian Mott was managing director Rob Key's left-field pick as white-ball coach, and he deserves some slack because England's preposterous schedule in July left him no time to analyse their weaknesses.
But let's not sugar-coat it: He has made a wretched start, losing 2-1 to India in both T20 and one-day series, followed by a 1-1 draw (with one washout) over the 50-over course and another 2-1 defeat by South Africa in the T20 best-of-three.
Jos Buttler has endured a baptism of fire as limited-overs captain, and Mott admitted: “It's been a bit of a struggle throughout the whole summer. We've held it together pretty well, and we were after a big performance to finish off well and get something for our toil.
"With the bat, we just never really got any momentum at all. If we get bowled out, sticking to our plans, and being aggressive, I think we can cop that.
“But we probably just lacked a bit of confidence. And I think that's probably a few weeks of cricket, where we've been on the back foot a bit, not really having a lot of time to change a lot of things and trying to put band aids over a few little cracks. I think Jos is really honest about where we need to go. Whenever you lose a great leader, there's a void there. That also can create space for a number of other leaders to step up.
“Anyone who knows Jos knows he's very hard on him on himself, and for me I think a big part is taking that burden away from him, freeing him up and letting him go out and show the world what a great player he is.”
