To botch one World Cup campaign may be regarded as a misfortune but by squandering two in the space of five months, English cricket risked looking plain careless.
Jos Buttler and Heather Knight each harboured realistic ambitions of captaining triumphant T20 campaigns in 2024 but both saw their plans go up in smoke.
Buttler’s men made all the right noises about learning the lessons from their meek 50-over title defence but were simply not up to standard in the Caribbean. They were roundly thrashed by India in the semi-finals but in reality must have known they were lucky to have squeaked out of the group stage at Scotland’s expense.
The women somehow fared worse, dumped out in the group stages in Dubai after a thrashing by the West Indies and an unforgivably ragged fielding performance. They had arrived full of confidence that they could reclaim a crown they last won in the inaugural event in 2009, but fell further and faster than anyone might have predicted.
For the first time since 2017 the England and Wales Cricket Board owned no major global trophies and the harsh reckonings duly followed.
Matthew Mott was sacked as men’s white-ball coach after a deeply disappointing reign, his job eventually swallowed by Test guru Brendon McCullum, who begins his all-format role in the new year. Mott’s counterpart Jon Lewis survived in charge of the women’s side his margin but has seen his margin for further error reduced to a whisker.
Alex Hartley, former World Cup winner turned pundit, put Lewis’ side on notice with a coruscating critique of their fitness and athletic rigour that will hang over their heads for some time to come.
The identity of the eventual winners, New Zealand, merely rubbed salt into the wounds. England routinely wiped the floor with the Silver Ferns over the course of the year, trouncing them away from home and then running up a 5-0 T20 whitewash in a thoroughly successful summer.
Regretfully, there was no summer Test match for England Women, the first time since 2020, but the longer form will be put on a pedestal once more in the new year when they with an Ashes clash at the MCG.
In contrast, Ben Stokes’ Bazballers barely stopped playing Test cricket in an exhausting calendar that contained 17 matches.
Things began with a stunning – and stunningly unlikely – win over India in Hyderabad. Having conceded a 190-run deficit they somehow stole a victory on the back of a devil-may-care 196 from Ollie Pope and a second-innings haul of seven for 62 from unassuming debutant Tom Hartley. It proved a false dawn, though, with the hosts recovering to take the series 4-1 and kickstart a reboot of an ageing team.
Record wicket-taker James Anderson was dragged, if not quite kicking and screaming then certainly with a fair share of reluctance, into a retirement he had defied until the grand old age of 41. He was, at least, afforded an emotional Lord’s farewell after 21 years of service and folded instantly into the coaching staff.
There was less sentimentality about the axeing of Jonny Bairstow, cast aside in all three formats in a ruthless piece of succession planning, while Ben Foakes and Jack Leach also found themselves ousted for younger models.
New stars filled the void as the West Indies and Pakistan were swept aside in home conditions. Gus Atkinson helped himself to 34 wickets and a century in his debut summer and Jamie Smith confirmed whispers that pegged him as a potential heir to Australian great Adam Gilchrist. Brydon Carse emerged from a three-month betting ban to become the breakout star of the winter programme in Pakistan and New Zealand, while Harry Brook became England’s first triple centurion in 34 years when he smashed 317 in Multan.
At domestic level Surrey continued their dominance of the first-class game with a third County Championship title in a row and Gloucestershire won an emotional T20 Blast in front of former England quick David ‘Syd’ Lawrence, who had recently revealed his battle with motor neurone disease.
Sweeping changes to the women’s game, culminating in the creation of a new ‘tier one’ county competition, were announced and the England Physical Disability team returned to competitive action after four years without a fixture. The Hundred continued for its fourth season but the on-field efforts were largely overshadowed by speculation around the imminent arrival of private investment into the competition.
