Matthew Mott has called for an increase in the number of white-ball international fixtures, citing England’s lack of recent action as a key factor behind their poor performances at the World Cup. But although his team have lost three of their first four games the Australian insisted: “I still think we can win this tournament.”
While the one-day team was the ECB’s key focus in the buildup to the 2019 World Cup, they are no longer the main priority. Between March and August this year there was a period of more than five months without England playing any white-ball matches at all, and six months with no ODIs. There will be another five-month break between the end of the tour of West Indies in December and their next white-ball fixtures, at home to Pakistan in May, shortly before the T20 World Cup in June.
