England are the best white ball team in the world. What else do you call the side who are World Champions in both ODI and T20 cricket?
They might be under new leadership in the shape of Jos Buttler and Matthew Mott, but the DNA of this group of players remains the same as it did in 2016 when they lost their first final, in 2019 when they won their first crown and again tonight as they sealed their legacy.
It stems of course from Eoin Morgan and his leadership of the side over the previous seven years, but it runs throughout the key players who have all made their impact, Buttler, Adil Rashid, Chris Jordan, Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood and above all else Ben Stokes.
On a night when things were far from easy for batting thanks to a pitch that really wasn’t ideal for a T20 showpiece, who else did England want walking out to bat at 32-2 other than Stokes? He really is a cricketing phenomenon.
And don’t forget he wasn’t even picked for the 2015 World Cup, because the selectors at the time didn’t think he was good enough. They thought that the man who had scored an Ashes hundred in his second match in Perth, might not be able to add something Down Under.
It was a shocking omission, and yet it might have been the best call of the lot. Had Stokes been there, England might have actually done OK.
He might have won a game for England that they lost, like the miserable match against Bangladesh. By leaving him at home, it meant that he could return to the side afresh and help Morgan start something new.
He could use his incredible skills with the bat, ball and in the field to drive forward this new era and he became the lightning rod around whom the rest of the team could revolve. There have been other bumps in the road too, such as the final over disintegration against Carlos Brathwaite and the West Indies in the 2016 T20 World Cup final.
There was the Champions Trophy semi-final defeat to Pakistan in 2017 too which highlighted the difficulty England then had on pitches that weren’t featherbeds. Give them a flat belter and they would thrash the bowling to distraction, but if there was a bit of nibble they had a tendency to crumble. Not anymore.
The 2019 World Cup was won the hard way, as too this one, with Stokes the central character both times, showing that success at this level in the big games are as much about ticker as they are about technique. When the pressure is on and at its greatest, how do you react?
In 2016 little was expected when they reached the final, but in 2019 and now they were tournament favourites. That brings an extra dimension to the challenge, and still they triumphed. That is why England are the best white ball team in the world.
