Miserable England are in need of a miracle

21 March 2014

England can rarely have entered a major tournament with such miserable prospects. They have virtually forgotten how to win, their bowling is perpetually vulnerable, their batting is worse, they hardly know their best team, their captain is barely fit and their coach is worried whether his job will exist in a fortnight.

That apart, the team led, perhaps or perhaps not, by Stuart Broad are in excellent spirits for the World Twenty20 in which they play their first group game tomorrow, against New Zealand.

Broad is but one concern for England and given the scale of the others his might be on the minor side. He has been suffering from tendinitis which caused him to miss two of the three T20 matches in Barbados last week and the first practice match after the team arrived in Bangladesh. He bowled a mere two overs in the second and can hardly be at the top of his game.

It is a huge risk to offer such latitude so close to the real business and he is bound to be raw. Being wildly optimistic, it is possible to speculate that England are approaching their peak at the right time. The evidence, unfortunately, is scant.

Of their last six T20 matches this year they have won one, and that after the West Indies had already claimed the series. In addition, they have gone down in the two warm-up matches in Bangladesh, beaten more or less out of sight in both.

The top order is cause for alarm. Neither of the openers, Michael Lumb and Alex Hales, look durable and Hales is making a nonsense of his elevation as recently as last summer to be the top-ranked T20 batsman in the world.

It appears Moeen Ali has been pencilled in at No3 but though he plays elegantly and his T20 performances for Worcestershire (273 runs last summer at 9.31 runs an over) are encouraging he has yet to convince in the international arena.

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For England to progress the form of Eoin Morgan and Jos Buttler is likely to be crucial but they need the occasional decent start.

Ian Bell, a batsman of the highest pedigree, has been called into the squad but bizarrely ignored.

The quality of England’s slow bowling is at best questionable. James Tredwell looks up to it, though New Zealand have some belligerent right-handers who will charge him. But Ali and the similarly inexperienced Stephen Parry may be grist to the mill of anyone who can put one foot in front of the other against spin, which seems to be the rest of the world except England.

There has been a desperate casting around for what the best strategy might be and no clear answer. Ashley Giles, who guided England to the final of the Champions Trophy last summer, is trying hard to concentrate on the job at hand rather than his interview for the post of head coach to succeed Andy Flower which takes place early next month.

He insists that this competition is not an audition but were England to win it, thus reviving faith in miracles, he might change his mind.

New Zealand represent England’s best chance of a victory. True, they have in Brendon McCullum a devastating batsman and are well balanced but compared to Sri Lanka and South Africa who follow, it might be now or never for Broad’s boys.

If England are to make any sort of headway in Bangladesh it will probably have to be left to the women’s team, led as ever by Charlotte Edwards. They begin their campaign for glory against West Indies on Monday in Sylhet and can be supported with genuine hope.

Miserable England are in need of a miracle

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