Ready to go: Harry Brook in the nets at Bloemfontein ahead of the one-day series against South Africa, which starts on Friday
(Picture: Getty Images)Something strange happened last week. England, who have not won an ODI series in their last three attempts, who were whitewashed in Australia before Christmas, who have lost six of their last eight completed matches and who have not even won a game in six months, became the No1-ranked team in the world again.
Their rise to the top of the ICC's somewhat flimsy leaderboard was a quirk of India's victory over New Zealand in the second ODI between the two nations, since rectified by another Indian win in the third, but it served to emphasise the muddled state of international 50-over cricket: something of a forgotten format — certainly, through an English lens — since the World Cup triumph of 2019.
