One-day internationals, remember them? Tomorrow, England play their first since last July, as a three-match series against the Netherlands begins.
It marks the start of the Matthew Mott era of English white-ball cricket, but must also be the beginning of their push towards their World Cup defence in India next year.
Three years ago, England were in the guts of an unforgettable World Cup campaign they had spent four years meticulously building for and would eventually bring glory — by hook, by crook or by boundary countback.
England had begun preparing for that tournament — a golden opportunity to win a trophy and capture the imagination, because it was at home — almost as soon as they were humiliated in 2015. Knocked out in the group stages, England overhauled their white-ball cricket under Eoin Morgan, with Brendon McCullum’s New Zealand’s approach the blueprint. They identified a group of players and told them to attack relentlessly without fear of being dropped.
It worked immediately. Against New Zealand, in the first game of the new regime, England scored 400 for the first time in their history and passed 350 twice more on the way to a series win. For context, they had been razed by the same opponents in the World Cup just a few weeks earlier in a day-night match in Wellington that did not require the lights to be switched on.
England cruised through those four years, raising the game’s bar while emptying the grounds’ bars.
Part of the reason England got so good was the sheer volume of cricket they played. Between World Cups, they had 88 ODIs, meaning they arrived at the tournament with a seasoned group of players who knew each other games intimately.
They used 34 players, 14 of whom were used less than 10 times, but 11 of the 13 used at the tournament had played more than 40 games between World Cups (seven had played more than 60). The last piece of the jigsaw was Jofra Archer.
By this stage of that cycle, they were declaring every game vital preparation for the tournament. This time? Well, it has all been rather different.
Through a combination of a change in international scheduling (the shift from five-match series to three with the arrival of the ICC’s Super League), a global pandemic and their own shifting priorities (T20 World Cups in 2021 and this year) England have played only 18 ODIs since that heady day in July, 2019. Jos Buttler and Ben Stokes, stars of the final, have appeared in six apiece. The exact schedules are unclear, but expect England to play around 30 more before next year’s big event.
Bubbles have meant that while they used just 34 players last time, they are already at 30 in this cycle, but the approach has essentially been to back the class of 2019. England put Liam Plunkett out to pasture, but everyone else is active.
With a new coach at the helm (and one who does not need to worry about Test cricket), it is time to start thinking about the World Cup. In his first press appearance yesterday, Mott said he need not “reinvent the wheel”, and he is right. But he added that “succession plan is a huge part of any environment that wants to prosper long term”. He was talking about leadership and
Morgan’s captaincy, which does feel unlikely to make it to 2023 as his body creaks, but there are other areas to work on, too. All the active seamers from the last World Cup — Archer, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood and Tom Curran — are currently injured, along with Saqib Mahmood, the star of last summer’s ODIs.
Mott has identified death bowling, in particular, as a work-on in the Netherlands, and he has a phalanx of left-armers on tour. Brydon Carse, who is highly-rated among England’s management, is one to watch, while Sam Curran and Reece Topley have had their moments, too.
With a new coach at the helm, it is time to start thinking about the World Cup
It is a shame that the hosts will be under-powered, because top players have not been released by their counties. England learned in defeat at the 2009 and 2014 T20 World Cups how dangerous they can be.
Despite missing key men of their own, England should be far too strong. But this low-key series, squeezed between Test matches, needs to be the starting point, as England look to peak in 2023.
