On a chilly night in Canberra, a few days before England’s T20 World Cup campaign started, Matthew Mott was asked if he and Jos Buttler had finalised a first XI for the tournament. “We’ll always rotate because I think that makes sense under different conditions,” the head coach said. “It’s a funny one because no matter what the first XI is, it doesn’t mean it’ll be the XI in the next game. It’s not as big an issue as it might sound.”
Since then England have played three games, one on a cool night in Perth, another on a rainy day in Melbourne and one on a humid evening in Brisbane. They have named the same team. Combined with the way they took on their run chase against Ireland – with the apparent certainty they could pace themselves over 20 overs, when a glance at a weather forecast or, for that matter, the sky would have suggested a completely different approach – the unchanged lineups suggested this was a template team, with an inflexibility of approach that runs contrary not just to common sense but to their coach’s public statements.
