England have had some pretty bad experiences at the Cricket World Cup. Back in 1987, we thought Mike Gatting’s reverse sweep was a disaster, but that shot was played in a World Cup Final. We had no idea back then that World Cup Finals would become a distant dream after 1992. We thought we had plumbed the depths in any of 1996, 1999, 2003, 2007 and 2011, but then came 2015, which was truly grim. Remarkably, 2023 has made 2015 look like a success story. Without a doubt, 2023 is England’s worst-ever World Cup campaign. What are the common themes for England at Cricket World Cups?
- POLITICS, CONTRACTS BEST PLAYERS MISSING: 1983, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2023
- WRONG (OR OUTDATED) STRATEGY: 1996, 2011, 2015, 2023
- WELL PREPARED, CLEAR ROLES, WELL LED: 1992, 2019
| A RARE WIN – just about, and even then we nearly messed it up | 2019 |
| GOOD – No shame in losing a final against that West Indies team | 1979 |
| OK – The first World Cup or the year that England’s best players were missing due to the rebel tour | 1975 1983 |
| FRUSTRATING – we should have won | 1987 1992 |
| BAD – we had no expectations, but it was bad | 1996 2003 2007 2011 2015 |
| REALLY BAD – we had no expectations but it was at home, and we went out before the tournament song was released. It was really, really, really bad. | 1999 |
| TERRIBLE – we expected success and experienced terrible failure | 2023 |
In 2023, the issues have been many and varied, but the number one word would be COMPLACENCY. This is something that seems to crop up a lot in English Cricket, and I find myself wondering why.
In fairness, it creeps in slowly. Sometimes, one player can be the difference between success and failure. In 1981 and 1986/7, England had struggled, but transformation was triggered by Lord Ian Botham. Sometimes, a change in attitude can have spectacular results – in 2009 England were bowled out for 54 by the West Indies, but a few months later regained The Ashes.
Sometimes, multiple things start to happen, but very slowly. In 2013 England won the Ashes at home, but things were ‘creaking’ – Jonathan Trott struggled while Graeme Swann bowled every over in pain as his body gave up. Yet a 3-0 win made England complacent – they thought by taking the same team over to Oz they would walk out with those Ashes. Yet actually, they needed to make changes. And as soon as Swann became ineffective, the tactics that had worked so well for England failed – because the three fast bowlers needed Swann to tie an end up. 1989 was similar for England – England tried to get one more series from the likes of Botham and David Gower – both the 1989 and 2013/4 Ashes teams failed spectacularly.
We see a lot of this in the 2023 World Cup. Like when Sir Andrew Strauss retired, the loss of Eoin Morgan changed the dynamics of the team – all of a sudden Jos Buttler had to set an example, and England was short of a quality batter. All of the team were a bit older, and several of the team were less fit and a bit less good. England’s tactics were confused and mixed up – but the original plan to attack very aggressively failed in India. Here we saw a lack of preparation we have often seen in World Cups, when The Ashes and World Cup fell in the same year. But it was not just a lack of immediate preparation – England have not played much 50 over cricket in recent years – Internationally or domestically.
But this year, the complacency also came from senior players who thought they could just walk into England’s team and dominate like they did in the lead-up to 2019. Moeen Ali’s self-belief had already been inflated by his call out of test match retirement last year, but actually Ali’s One Day Career should probably have ended after the 2019 World Cup, during which he was dropped. Ben Stokes was so certain of his own infallibility that he ‘unretired. This ‘unretire’ business needs to end’. They thought they were so good that they could even focus a bit of energy on Central Contacts during the tournament – something that also happened in 1999.
So, what is the answer? Well, it is not easy. You cannot expect England to tear apart a winning team. But the reality is that the team stopped winning a while ago – and yet England clung to a belief that when the 2019 heroes came back it would all be fine. The team was never put together to test that out. But the real answer is simpler than rest and rotation. The real answer is the need to focus on the here and now. England fell into a trap of looking at the team of the past – not the present. They did this in the 2006/7 Ashes – when the likes of Geraint Jones and Ashley Giles played and England tried to re-create the 2005 team. It never works.
Perhaps this all comes as a result of this endless talk of ‘cycles’. The World Cup cycle, the T20 cycle, that Ashes cycle….we will get to the end of this cycle and then make wholesale changes. It never has worked. Play to the here and now. All the time. Not to the past.
Cricketed 