The logo for this World Cup features nine square symbols, each intended to represent – quite how is not always obvious – a word with which the tournament may be associated. It is mostly a pretty banal list: joy, respect, power, pride, bravery, glory, wonder, passion. But there is one that stands out, completely unexpected in this company but absolutely deserving of its place: anguish.
As England’s players and staff gathered around the large, boardroom-style table next to their dressing room after the 69-run defeat to Afghanistan on Sunday, it did not take a body language expert to work out which of the nine best represented them. There were no flying teacups, nor for that matter movement of any kind, just slumped shoulders and thousand-yard stares.
The holders had been thrashed by a side that has never played a home game and that in World Cups had only beaten Scotland – two tournaments ago by the narrowest of margins. This group that travelled with dreams of perhaps going on to emulate the great Australia side that won three successive titles between 1999 and 2007, had gone on to emulate the current Australia, engulfed in early group-stage crisis.
Their tournament is not dead. There are six group games remaining and it is possible – though it would require quite the transformation – they will win five of them, which is probably what will be required to reach the semi‑finals. “It’s part of cricket, you win some, you lose some. You can’t win every game and we just lost a game,” Adil Rashid said.
“You’re going to have games where players are out of form, that’s just part of the game. But I do believe we’ve got the squad, we’ve got the team, we’ve got the mentality to be hungry.”
There was a contrast here to what Harry Brook said on the eve of the game, when asked if he was paying much attention to the other games being played. “Little bits and bobs,” he said with a shrug. “I’ve been playing quite a bit of golf, so that’s taken my full attention the last couple of days.”
Cricketers need some time away and Brook was by a wide margin England’s least bad batter against Afghanistan, but can this possibly be defined as “the mentality to be hungry”?
Like a golfer who keeps finding the bunkers, it is clear England have blundered into a few traps. Most obviously, for a side that preaches daring and aggression, their squad selection was remarkably conservative and cautious. Jos Buttler’s response to being asked about Chris Woakes’s abysmal form was telling: “He’s performed extremely well over a long period of time. They’re the guys you want in your team and you keep backing them.” In other words, players are judged on past performances rather than current ones.
To an extent, this approach was forced upon them. Limiting squads to 15 players is supposed to reduce the advantage of the strongest nations – though identifying the strongest nations is precisely why the tournament exists – but because they are so small the selectors are compelled to make only the safest of bets. Knowing their options will be limited once the tournament begins they pick established, reliable performers, who will ideally have already experienced similar conditions and major global tournaments. In other words, very experienced ones. Eleven of England’s squad are 32 or older and just three are younger than 29 – Brook, Sam Curran and Gus Atkinson – and the latter probably only made it on to the plane due to Jofra Archer’s injury.
It also means the four players not in England’s notional first XI were selected largely because of their ability to mimic those who are: only Reece Topley offers something genuinely different. Of the six specialist batters, five must always play. So how do you shake up a team that finds itself in the doldrums a few games in? Like a deck of cards that contains only one suit, however much you shuffle it every hand is going to look the same.
England must now use their joker. Ben Stokes is nearing full fitness and will surely play against the in-form South Africa on Saturday whether he has got there or not. When most of the changes they could make to the team will not really change the team, it is on Stokes, fit or not, to single-handedly carry them to a higher level. Happily, it is a role he has performed extremely well over a long period of time.
