When a campaign has been as poor as England’s in this 50-over World Cup the leadership has to come under the microscope. Jos Buttler said there is “no golden egg” after the defeat to Sri Lanka, while Matthew Mott said he didn’t have the answers. Of course, captains and head coaches have to be canny when speaking to the media but all the same, answers like these are never a good look.
England have not done the basics well in this campaign, either with the ball or building partnerships with the bat to then ask questions of their opponents. Before the game that effectively sealed their fate we had a bullish Moeen Ali saying they would look to give it a crack, which sounded to me like they would blaze away and hope to find some form. But 50-over cricket is not that simple, you need much more adaptability and you only have to look back to 2019 as a good example. It seems strange they have forgotten that four years on.
