WWT20: England “Do An England”

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So it turns out that tonking Pakistan, as they embarked upon a heroically reckless Charge of the Light Brigade into The Valley of Net Run Rate, possibly wasn’t an indication that England had turned overnight into world-beaters.

Or even Australia-beaters.

In fact, there is a term for what England did today: it’s called “Doing an England!”

They didn’t bowl particularly well, but they weren’t awful either – Australia got off to a solid start, but it wasn’t a flyer. Down the innings, England took wickets – brilliantly in the case of the run-outs of Lanning and Blackwell – and pegged-back a total which at one stage looked set for something closer to 160.

Then they started batting.

Charlotte Edwards was taking some stick on Twitter for not running the twos; but in fact Tammy Beaumont was the one who wasn’t playing her role up-top – a Strike Rate of 80 just isn’t good enough when you need to chase at well over 100, and she faced far too many dot balls.

And although it is true that England were actually ahead of Australia at the half-way stage, you can live with that if  your middle order is Meg Lanning, Ellyse Perry and Alex Blackwell.

England’s isn’t!

This left Katherine Brunt with a mountain to climb at the end, and though she did her damndest and actually gave the final margin of defeat a bit of respectability, it wasn’t to be. England had “Done an England”… as only England can!

 

29 thoughts on “WWT20: England “Do An England””

  1. England need what they term a ‘closer’ someone who can finish the job that the top order started and protect the tail. Rather than the tail scraping home (see group matches).

    I used to be proud of English fielding and remember watching them set the international standard. Now I’m not so sure a couple of good run-outs, do not a good fielding side under pressure make.

    This summer we entertain an up and coming Pakistan side in conditions that should play to our strengths. I am interested to see whether ECB Academy performances will spark competition for long-term places. The big plus was Tammy Beaumont, as a player who could be at the heart of any future England team.

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  2. Lydia Greenway should have batted at 4/5 when we were 90 for2 left handed,rotate the strike,quick running turning 1s into 2s,with some boundaries.This thing about “big hitting” etc etc never works–look at the stats!!

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  3. Players are too obsessed with ramps and reverse sweeps high risk little reward etc. These shots are meant when there aren’t any fielders in those particular areas and when the game situation demands, not when you should be coasting to an easy victory having had a solid start. Excuses need to stop we have entered an era of contracted players who by definition are meant to be professional,mentally tough and physically fit, which they are not. Yes the captain gets the majority of runs however her batting partner and team lose runs as she cannot run between the wickets, therefore, you win or lose depending on her performance. Other batters struggle as they play more dot balls with her there, not getting full value for their shots. I know it’s harsh she needs to retire from T20 format of the game as she puts too much pressure on the younger batters. You also have to hide her in the field due to her lack of athleticism. England need to build for the future which also means Greenaway and Gunn stepping aside as they have gone past their sell by date. Greenaway appears to be in the team for her fielding , l don’t know of any team in the World where that would happen. Farrant and Jones should be given their chance by guaranteeing them a number of games. Yes Beaumont has done well and would have done better if her opening partner could run twos she may not of got out in the ways she did by playing unnecessary big shots. Manager needs to look at every shot played today where a run or a second run was not taken additionally where the first run wasn’t run quickly. England should have reached the final with the younger talent available in the County system instead a Charlotte Edwards XI went to the tournament, just saying……………lol etc.

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    • Some have watched women’s cricket for many years. Your observation would have applied 5 years ago. A restricted scoring rate was evident with Mithali Raj in 50 over cricket with the same consequences. Lottie is a great captain and a classical batsman. She is not a T20 player.
      Is the ECB restricted by the contracts renewed with the existing squad only a few months ago?

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  4. All sorts of thoughts at the moment, a good deal of them not necessarily complimentary, but let’s leave the knee-jerking to one side for a moment…

    The over-riding thing for me is that we are not much more than six months into Mark Robinson’s “reign.” He came in at a time when it was blatantly apparent that England had work to do to catch up with Australia (and possibly New Zealand too), and to pull away again from West Indies, India and South Africa.

    Since then, in reality, he has had relatively little time to assess the squad, much less so those on the fringes, playing actual cricket (ie. not in nets or training). He readily admitted to limited knowledge when he took the job, so it’s hardly surprising that he went for the tried and trusted (eg . Greenway and Gunn) over throwing in a plethora of newbies.

    In that sense this tournament was his “free go”, so I’m willing to cut some slack. However, the honeymoon period is most definitely over, and if the WT20 has done anything it has put some of the areas where we are falling short into sharper focus. All bets should be off now as to the direction England go in from here. Fingers crossed the advent of the WCSL and the Pakistan series will see the team evolve more in readiness for challenges ahead.

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  5. Having just watched the highlights, overall thoughts are that it was a very good game, nice to watch with both sides playing good stuff at times. It was close. England could have won with a slightly better performance in a few areas which they lost a little bit of ground in each.

    I’m not sure why we bowled first having won the toss. We should have batted, given how dodgy chasing had been throughout the tournament.

    The sum total of the poor running, fielding errors and bad initial bowling was an extra few runs that would have meant the difference between winning and losing. Yes, Edwards was a few runs short, both on her own score and Beaumont’s due to slow running. Sky just showed at least 3 occasions where what should have been a 2 from Beaumont was only a single. Could have made the difference. And Beaumont did, I think, try to “hit out or get out” as she went a bit slower today. She could have been dismissed 2 or 3 times but catches were dropped etc.

    Brunt and Shrubsole started poorly and gave the Aussies an initial boost. Lanning was allowed to get in and make another great innings.

    I don’t agree when people like to lay all the blame on the batting. T20 is hit and miss. The best boundary hitters were out there, they just got out (Brunt, Taylor, Sciver) or hung around without being able to hit it cleanly (Wyatt). These few runs could have also been saved in the field.

    Personally I think that Taylor and Knight will be disappointed with their performances overall in this WWT20. Knight was very average with the bat. Even after all this time I’m still not completely convinced of her place in the team. Both her and Taylor can do better, and will need to if England are to win anything.

    Still, I think that a semi-final was about as well as we could have expected to do, considering the opposition. Schutt and Farrell really have a knack of taking important wickets when they need to. Very useful bowlers. Australia look like a decent bet for the tournament now. It will need a very good performance from NZ (or maybe WI) to beat them.

    Edwards is going to have to look at all this and decide when she wants to call it a day. Can she make it through the 2017 WWC? At the moment she is still doing well enough, but for how much longer? The signs are there that we need some drastic changes. Robinson’s hand may be forced to action with the contracts sooner or later. Expect to see a few changes in personnel later this year I think…

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  6. England have struggled to find an opening partner for Edwards nobody in recent years has been successful and this is not due to not having the talent. Beaumont being her opening partner at Kent is more used to her lack of running and her wanting to be on strike. Others were under so much pressure to do well and not being able to take quick singles or run two’s adds to the pressure to hit big shots to early resulting in failure. Opening the innings is all about rotating the strike and having confidence in your partners running ability whilst remaining calm and relaxed to play your own game. It’s not about worrying about your partners fitness or speed this results in s scrambled brain and bad shot selection. Edwards has a fantastic record however the T20 game, as shown today, has moved on at a pace and with TV there is no hiding place it’s all there for the World to see. It was a similar situation with Alistar Cook insisting on playing all formats when others were far more more suited. Nasser got it right retired at the top reputation in tact.

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  7. While I agree the coach had his cards dealt for the SA tour and this World Cup I hope what is going on behind closed doors differs from todays rhetoric.

    Nearly all the players in this squad are under contract through this summer. Some of them should not see action vs Pakistan, if they do and the academy players remain in waiting – how much competitive experience will they get before the 2017 World Cup?

    Mr Agnew is quite rightly critical of the teams performance under pressure and that is the stark contrast of media scrutiny in this new professional age, They say talent only gets you so far in this case they are right.

    If England had been knocked out in the group stages this may have grabbed less headlines. Instead this Semi was a chance to turn things around (win or lose) and put in a performance instead they were caught in the headlights of the Aussie juggernaut AGAIN!

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    • It would have been very strange if performing less well in the competition (knocked out at group stage) had resulted in less media scrutiny or criticism. Not sure about that. In fact I think we would have been more likely to see kneejerk reactions, so this is probably better overall.

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      • James P what I mean is that this semi final loss has resulted in more media coverage, than a group loss.

        For so many of us the England women have been the antithesis of other underperforming England teams, Now on this one performance the public have seen falability and a team in transition.

        The post match news conference maybe a smoke screen but the look on Charlotte Edwards face as Mark Robinson spoke said even more.

        Rebuilding the England flagship is about more than just what the coach and captain do next or the WSL but who is going to take the first brave step?
        .

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  8. The fact that England’s T20 batting was a disaster should be a surprise to no one who has followed the team over the last few years. The fact that this known problem has not been resolved (in fact I think the batting here was worse than ever) must raise some serious questions about the way things are run. England really are 3rd best in the world in this form and don’t look like closing that gap any time soon.
    Every England batsmen should be worried – well they should be worried if the Winfield test is equally applied to all (which of course it won’t be !). The Winfield test goes like this – score 4, 22 and 74 against South Africa, score 1 and 48 against New Zealand, score 1 and 1 against Australia and then get dropped from the next T20, not get selected for any of the T20s on the SA tour and don’t even make the squad for the World Cup.
    The above is remarkable, made even more so by their decision to replace a batsmen with a non-spin bowler in the WC squad. With England’s history of T20 batting issues this represented an ‘interesting’ approach.
    Robinson (badly advised by others I’d suggest for the above) is not to be judged yet because he’s not been in charge long enough. It is very refreshing to hear real thoughts and concerns during interviews instead of the ECB media controlled garbage we used to hearing. He sounds like a good choice and I wish him well.
    Watching England’s 3rd collapse of the tournament on Sky, the matter was brought into sharp focus by having Claire Taylor in the Sky studio. England batsmen could learn so much from how she used to bat for England. Yes she was very talented but she really had ‘between the ears’ and understood how to build an innings, how to exploit the field and how to manage the match situation. Lanning looks like a very similar player.

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  9. As has already been said, very depressing yesterday. If a side fails to see it through needing 44 with 9 wickets in the shed, it should be seen as a cock up. Unfortunately I think a lot of us could see that coming after the collapses v India & West Indies. A middle order of Sciver, Wyatt, Greenway and Knight will not worry the top international attacks, while some of these have done it in the past for England, none gives you much hope right now. An uninformed observer would expect at least some of these 4 players to be dropped now, but I think I’ll get some agreement when I suggest that most, if not all, will be lining up against Pakistan in the English summer. As for the criticisms about running 1s when they should have been 2s, well its a balancing act. Do you drop Edwards in favour of a young whippet but lose her runs? I’d stick with her on balance for as long as she can physically make it out to the middle, given the lack of appealing alternatives! One positive amongst the doom and gloom, which no one’s mentioned here yet, well done to Robinson for seeing something in Beaumont and bringing it out of her. I know that many commentators on this site were sceptical about that selection – me included. Can he now do the same with Amy Jones for example? The batting alternatives that have already had some sort of England career are Jones (ODI average 17, T20 average 6.25), Winfield (13.91 and 17) and Wilson (0 and 11)

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    • To expand your question Martin – do you drop Edwards, down the order? Could a flexible batting order retain her qualities while giving the openers (say Beaumont & Jones) a licence to score quickly and fail occasionally? Even Alastair Cook had to give up his T20 dream eventually and you either evolve with the team & format or retire.

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  10. Okay so Gunn is now meant to be a spinner according to Coach and obviously a batter too if batting infront of Greenway, the confirmed specialist fielder……..lol.

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  11. Farrant deserves a chance a genuine seamer left arm over. Not many right handers relish facing this first up, also easier to set a field to. She’s probably spent more time in a airplanes loo than she has time on a pitch abroad. GIve her a go….just saying etc.

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  12. Not sure I completely agree with all the negative sentiment. This was England’s least bad collapse in 3 times chasing (so I ask again, why did we chase?) and as we’ve seen today, NZ hardly fared any better, chasing just a few more (in fact they lost by one more run). Conclusion: Chasing’s hard. Especially when you play in the afternoons – in the men’s games in the evening it’s easier, because bowlers get the dew to worry about.

    We should not be viewing this through the lens of the longer formats. You cannot compare this to a Test or ODI. “Collapses” happen all the time in T20 – in fact, you almost want them (or at least, losing wickets regularly) to happen in a sense, because it shows you are balancing wickets and runs. If we finished on 127-3 we would have died wondering, and it would have been even worse. We were not all out, at least.

    Overall I’m satisfied with England’s results (we lost one less game than the last WWT20), but not the performances. But this is T20, the hit and miss format. We now have Australia and West Indies in the final. Both have been poor in iT20 series before this, Aussies losing to India at home and WI losing in SA (a series we won just before that, I might add). All these sides, and England, are pretty much on level terms with each other. And remember the only team to have beaten WI so far is… England! The failure against Australia really boiled down to a few players (Knight, Taylor in my view) taking a bit too long to get going, or not getting going at all.

    It hardly seems the time for a post world cup Waddle-esque rant to me. And yet, I am still concerned…

    If you’re not satisfied with a middle order of Knight, Sciver, Wyatt and Greenway then I wonder if we do need full batters and not all rounders: A. Jones, bringing back Winfield, or getting Wilson & E. Jones from the Academy. Stat, as it were. Signs of friction maybe, or cross purposes, between Robinson and Edwards as well in the press conference?

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    • My amateur analysis of the press conference would suggest we had a tough competitor, bruised in defeat and who felt criticised despite a doing her bit with the bat to set a platform from which the game should’ve been won.

      A coach who inherited a squad trusted a team of professionals who despite a hard tour of SA and weeks of T20 prep were in his view undercooked and underperformed.

      Now they all head back to UK and the two will no doubt meet up in Loughbrough for an ECB debrief and wouldn’t we all like to be a fly on the wall for that one!

      The tour by Pakistan is before the WSL so the ECB media team will have double the work to do this summer and Claire Conner some serious spin doctoring..

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      • My (very) amateur analysis of the press conference was a coach refreshingly speaking as he sees it (and long may that continue) and a captain who is 37 and had just dumped on from a great height by a set of players she trusted to get her that world cup that has escaped England since 2009.
        Any ‘bullets’ Robinson was firing was certainly not in the direction of Edwards. Her running between the wickets is crap (due to physical limitations rather than fitness or skill) but she compensates for that by scoring lumps of runs and selling her wicket very dearly. She looks like she’s just loss a close family member every time she is dismissed. It really matters to her. Whether captain or not her name would be first on the team sheet.
        I think Robinson was basically saying we need more Edwards clones and we haven’t got them.

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    • I think you are being a little tough on Knight and Sciver when referring to the middle order batting problems. In the last 2 years T20 internationals, both have contributed close to 300 runs apiece (in addition to being used as key bowlers, bowling over 100 overs between them and taking 30 odd wickets, so could be selected for their bowling contributions alone) In that same time, Greenway has scored close to 200 runs ( I agree her current form is a little iffy) and Wyatt only 80 runs.
      Neither Wyatt nor Greenway can be referred to as all-rounders, only bowling one over between them in the same 2 year period. So Wyatt and Greenway can only be judged on their batting contributions (unless as a previous poster suggested we are now selecting players for their fielding skills only) and 80 runs in 2 years isn’t good enough (consider that Brunt has scored more T20 international runs in the las 12 months alone).
      I agree with you that we have to look at giving Jones, Winfield etc an extended run. It’s difficult to believe they could contribute any less.

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      • Yes Clanger CE would still be first on my team sheet but not necessarily the batting order in T20 but definitely in ODI.

        She is still a model professional ahead of her time. As soon as they had to play the Aussies she must have knew she had a job as captain to pull the team over a huge psychological hurdle.

        I think the coach knew it too…

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      • John – I think you misunderstand me. I have no issues with Sciver’s performances at all. In this competition her stats were respectable: 80 runs @ 20, SR 101. She regularly plays important innings and get plenty of wickets. However, Knight’s stats were pretty horrific, batting wise: 19 runs @ 5, SR 49. You have to admit, not great. I wasn’t intending to criticize though, I was merely following on from Martin Saxon’s earlier comment that suggested our middle order doesn’t worry the top attacks and that may be due to the fact that they are all-rounders and not full batters. I think Knight should focus on her batting as a priority. We need solid batters most of all. She is capable of much better. For Greenway, I don’t know what to think, she seems to have lost something since the Ashes series.

        As far as Wyatt goes, agreed she can’t justify her place currently, however the frustrating thing is we are only seeing part of her game. Why she does not bowl, I have no clue. In WBBL, her bowling was very useful (14 Wckts @15.9, ER 5.7). Compare this to Knight (17 Wckts @16.3, ER 5.8). They are not so different. Previous England bowling stats are OK. I think it is one of the psychological issues that Robinson mentions needs to be sorted out. All-rounders sometimes needs both sides of their game to draw off one another.

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  14. Interesting measure of the batting collapses against India, West Indies and Australia.
    In terms of the fewest runs scored by our 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th wickets combined (where the 6th wicket has fallen) the 3 innings above (with cumulative partnerships of 20, 27 and 29 runs) are all in the top (well I guess bottom) 8 cases in all England T20s.
    The 24 runs accrued by our 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th wicket against West Indies was the 2nd worst such case – only beaten by the 20 runs accumulated by these partnerships also against West Indies when scoring 129-8. In fact the 20 run case was pretty spectacular given the opening partnership of 69 (Edwards and Winfield) was followed by partnerships of 13, 1, 3, 1, 2, 3 and 4 meaning England plunged from 69-0 to 98-6.
    England have played 100 T20s.

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  15. Experience is always reckoned to be a good thing – except perhaps when it’s England and their batting is imploding with shots that look like they’ve only just been capped !
    In the semi-final against Aus, England put 690 caps onto the field – the most they have ever put out in a T20. In fact in all 5 matches in this WC England exceeded 600 caps having never previously played a match with 600+ caps.
    The last T20 when an England player won their 1st cap was way back in 1st match of the 2014 T20 World Cup against West Indies on 24th March 2014 when Dibble won her only cap to date and Grundy won her first cap.
    2015 isn’t the first year in which there were no new caps. It’s happened before in 2012 when England played a whopping 20 T20s. The gap in which 2012 fell was 30th October 2011 (Elwiss 1st cap) and 5th July 2013 (Farrant, Jones, Sciver and Winfield new caps) so the existing duration of just over 2 years is a record.

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  16. Hazell’s absence from the 2nd match broke her sequence of 39 consecutive T20s (no one has managed such a sequence before). The previous match she missed was way back on 13th Sept 2012.
    Taylor is currently on a sequence of 34.

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