It is obvious now that England’s preparation for this tournament was inadequate. They may counter that it was extremely similar to South Africa’s, who are second in the table having lost only once: both teams scheduled precisely 16 ODIs in the year before the start of the World Cup and none at all for five or six months until September, when they played a home series against Antipodean opponents, gave their first-team players a short break and then travelled to India.
The difference is that eight South Africans played 10 or more of those ODIs, and only four Englishmen, two of whom have been peripheral here. The majority of their side have played together frequently, and know the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of their teammates and this format. Meanwhile some of the players England planned to rely on – Jonny Bairstow, Joe Root, Mark Wood, Ben Stokes and Liam Livingstone – had not played a 50-over game for more than a year when they turned up for the first match of September’s series against New Zealand (and Gus Atkinson had only ever played two). The assumption was that they were experienced enough to click straight into gear and stay there, but England’s assumptions have turned out not to be very reliable.
