It was classic Jon-Ball™ – exciting, big-hitting, fearless cricket. It was inspiring. It was entertaining. And it knocked England out of the World Cup in the final match of the group stages.
England 141-7 v West Indies 142-4 #T20WC
— CRICKETher (@crickether.bsky.social) 2024-10-15T17:15:20.954Z
It was that West Indies powerplay that changed the game – England had made a pretty reasonable 141, which is (just, but a single run) better than the average first innings total in T20s between the sides competing at this World Cup over the past 2 years. West Indies couldn’t afford to be complacent chasing a total like that, and 9-and-a-half times out of 10 you’d have backed England, who haven’t lost to the West Indies since their group stage defeat to the then-hosts of the 2018 T20 World Cup in St Lucia.
West Indies needed something special and they got it from Qiana Joseph, who has never made an international 50 before. She attacked England’s bowling and the gods willed her on, as she was dropped 5 times on her way to 52 off 38 balls, with 2 6s and 6 4s. The dropped catches weren’t all easy chances, especially the 3rd and 4th ones, with Maia Bouchier running round the boundary, though we have seen Bouchier pouch more difficult opportunities. But Dunkley in the 2nd over, and Capsey in the 5th, could have… should have… would have… made all the difference if they’d held on. Catches win matches.
Those 67 runs off the powerplay – a Strike Rate of over 180 – put the West Indies in such a commanding position that they could afford to slow down substantially, which is just what they did – pootling along (at least by the standards they’d set in the first 6) at around 6 an over through the middle overs.
In fact, they almost pootled a little too much, with a required rate which had been well under 6, getting back to a run a ball in the last 5 overs, with two new batters at the crease. On the sofa next to me, Raf Nicholson was contemplating the possibility of a rewrite to her “on-the-whistle” (yes – they still call it that!) report for the Guardian. But cometh the hour, cometh Deandra Dottin, as if the scriptwriters had known it all along, walloping Charlie Dean for a 4 and then 2 6s to claw back the initiative. Ecclestone ultimately nailed Dottin in what turned out to be the final over, but it was all too late. Aaliyah Alleyne came in and stroked her first ball beautifully through the covers for 4, then finished the job 3 balls later with another 4. Game, set and match to the Windies.
Do England have any excuses? Jon Lewis pointed out afterwards (whilst saying that he “wasn’t making excuses”) that it was England’s first chance to play in this stadium, with it’s “Ring Of Fire” lights which can make it challenging to judge the high ball; but on the other hand, England have had far more chances to play under lights in general than the West Indies over the past few years – they’ve played 17 T20s under lights in the past 3 years (only Australia (19) have played more) whist the West Indies have played just 9.
The truth is that England probably did score enough runs to win on any other day, but this wasn’t any other day. They had their own big bit of luck with Nat Sciver-Brunt being given not out LBW after the West Indies had already burned both their reviews – if they’d had another review, NSB would have been walking off and England would not have got to 141.
The Heather Knight situation didn’t help. Despite England literally having had Knight sit out of a match last summer to simulate her being unavailable, England didn’t really know how to manage the game without their all-powerful skipper. Nat Sciver-Brunt is a remarkable player, but she is not a captain, and she just looked slightly lost, trying to bring both Amy Jones and Sophie Ecclestone into the decision-making as England faltered.
Arguably, Knight choosing to not come out to field was an interesting decision of itself – she walked off, and she was fit enough to have been ready to bat again at the end of the innings if required, so could she have fielded? It was almost like she was protecting herself ahead of a semi-final which didn’t come partly because she wasn’t out there.
What this did show is that there isn’t another captain in this group, and that Heather Knight will be right to continue in the T20 captaincy through to the 2026 World Cup in England (as we expect to happen) because there is no other option – Knight has played a blinder in ensuring that there are no successors breathing down her neck. But Grace Scrivens has to be be brought in to the ODI side now to allow her to take over the ODI captaincy after the 50 over World Cup in India, and the T20 leadership in 2026. The tours to South Africa and Australia are what England need to be looking to now, and Scrivens absolutely must be on those planes.
CRICKETher 
I’m not trying to be obtuse (although I very much well be doing so!) but I don’t understand how a viewing of today’s match – or indeed any of them – leads to the conclusion that playing ‘excitingly’ etc. is why they lost.
Big fan of the pod/site, but not sure I see this one.
Best!
Alex
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[Apologies for those who know I think NRR is crap – albeit I also haven’t come up with a better system]
I got worried about NRR when I compared the South Africa, England and West Indies results. It didn’t seem to be that England’s results were really any worse than South Africa’s.
What is shocking is that they were not.
If you stack up the NRR from each match you get:-
SA Bang 0.873
SA Scot 4.000
SA WI 0.773
SA Eng -0.266
Eng Bang 1.050
Eng Scot 5.850
Eng WI -0.950
Eng SA 0.266
So, England bettered the South Africa NRR in 3 of their 4 matches.
Add this lot up and you get England with 6.21 and South Africa with 5.38 (same exercise with WI puts them on 6.83)
The actual (in the sense of the way the ICC do it) cumulative NNR was WI (1.53), SA (1.38) and England (1.09)
Notwithstanding the above weirdness, in a 3 way fight (and this table was always likely to be that), its vital to stuff your other two main competitors and England blew it in the South Africa match. Wickets don’t matter in T20, scoring rates do. If England had thrown the bat a bit more (even if they lost a few more wickets) and beat South Africa in 17.4 overs instead of 19.2 then they would be in the semi-final instead of South Africa on NRR (1.267 v 1.263)
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There’s a reason one always feels dead nervous about watching England in world cups. Oppositions sense it too. England are so vulnerable in pressure stages of world cups imo. Full strength or not. And they didn’t bowl all that well throughout the tournament anyway. Despite some amazing bowling displays in bilaterals. And I stg England’s fielding is always a bit of a curate’s egg, I will die on that hill till it isn’t.
And having made the big decision to recall Smith – providing an element of ‘surprise’ for all these sides who know post pandemic England so well (win or lose), promptly benched her. Typical 4D- chess move that failed, as a friend said to me.
When Healy got injured I thought- here we go, Australia are gonna prove they can do this with one hand tied behind their back. With Knight I felt desperately sorry for her but no gut-feeling the result would’ve been much different had she been ok. The catches would still have been shelled, maddeningly; the bowlers lukewarm and NSB holding the batting down.
I don’t really enjoy so much predicting winners and outcomes in big tournaments. I want belief and hope to take the wheel and just engage in the spectacle in real time as a fan – back the leadership’s plan. But I look forward to the day when so much doubt doesn’t steal in with the cricket squad.
Anyway, I still love the thought that any one of the non-Australian semi finalists might be T20 world champs. That’s still definitely very exciting possibility.
Still gutted for England tho, gem of a group of good-natured and talented cricketers and representatives of home. This must hurt like hell.
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Syd, you often make allusions on the podcast to the theory that Heather is scheming away to maintain an iron grip on the captaincy.
This is quite a serious allegation to make, essentially accusing the England captain of sabotaging her team and its future for her own personal ambition.
I would be interested if you can back it up with specific examples. Who has been unfairly snubbed by England because they might have a claim on Heather’s throne? Who has been kept down within the England setup lest they become a threat?
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We know that England have made no real attempt to promote anyone as a future captain – you see this most clearly with the vice-captaincy being handed back to NSB (meaning effectively, there is no vice-captain) rather than going to (say) Charlie Dean or Sophie Ecclestone. So obviously they ar *not* succession-planning.
Either this is unconscious – it has never really occurred to them that this is something they should consider; or it is conscious – they have made an active decision not to do it. And… I don’t think HK is stupid – quite the opposite – she is a very, very smart person. Therefore…
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I agree NSB doesn’t look a great prospect for captain. But she has said she wants to do it and is guaranteed her place in the team. I can understand why she would be the favoured transition option until a younger player is ready. Rather like the role Healy is performing for Australia.
Ecclestone, the other player guaranteed a place, seems unsuited to captaincy in just about every respect.
Dean has captained the ‘A’ side. As, of course, has Grace Scrivens. Does that not imply some succession planning? Particularly in the case of Scrivens, who was leading England ‘A’ as a teenager before she’d even assumed the Sunrisers captaincy. Giving such responsibility to someone with obvious future England captain potential feels like a flaw in Heather’s masterplan.
Now, it may be that Heather’s time has come. I don’t have hugely strong opinions on this either way. My gut feeling is that she provides an element of composure and grit to what is otherwise quite a soft group. But equally one could argue she bears responsibility for the environment that has allowed such softness to fester.
So I have no issue with people calling for Heather to go. And obviously I can’t prove that your theory about her machinations is wrong. I have no idea. But I do think if you are going to attribute such ungenerous motives to someone you need strong evidence to back up your claim and I’m afraid I remain unconvinced.
(The anonymous comment above is mine. Have just figured out that clicking on the email symbol allows me to add a name to my posts!)
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If Heather Knight was ignoring the consequences beyond her term in office, would that make her the consummate politician ?
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This was a bit of a nightmare for England, and obviously a big disappointment for everyone involved. Having had a moment to assess things, I do think you have to attribute some amount of this at least to an off-day, a bad performance. Although there may be more going on in the background that led up to that, and may have contributed. England were maybe 10-20 runs short with the bat but it was mainly that awful start in the powerplay, wayward bowling and appalling catching that cost them most.
What can England claim went against them in this comp? We can point to:
*England only lost 1 match – normally that would still be OK to progress to the semis and England have lost and progressed before. In the end group B, not A, was the group of death.
*First game at Dubai was the final group game that England needed to win. The foreign conditions didn’t help, and England strangely seemed to have the pre-set plan of leaving out Linsey Smith.
*England really only had 1 bad innings in the comp, which seems harsh to be eliminated because of it.
That said, I think it’s possible to conclude that some of Jon Lewis’ mid to long term strategies have failed. Is there a case for a massive inquest into what went on with Knight’s departure and what the players discussed when she didn’t out to field? Given Lewis’ previous comments about player communication on the field – and how it’s hard to argue that wasn’t a factor again this time – should Lewis go?
A consistent strategy Lewis has employed has been to challenge the players with his little scenarios, setting up to need X runs off Y overs, imagine it’s Australia etc. Even changing the team and tactics around to create little mini-challenges mid-game. We’ve made some weird tactical decisions over the past year or so and sometimes it’s hard to tell what was deliberate and what wasn’t.
At the end of the day it’s hard to conclude this has been effective. Lewis wanted a long pre-comp build-up for all the players (and announced that and the misplaced idea of a reserve side to play Ireland back at the start of the season) but what good has it done? For example if Dunkley, Capsey and/or Dani Gibson had played in that Ireland series we might have won the ODI’s more convincingly and won the T20 series too. It’s not as if they were needed that much in the T20 WC. Lewis has been sacrificing series for some mystical later payoff, which has never arrived and he’s clearly left with egg on his face.
I say scrap that – it’s not worked. England fell apart under no real pressure from a team they normally beat in the end. Either Qiana Joseph is the next big thing on the T20 franchise circuit, or England’s bowlers (and batters!) aren’t as clever as we thought!
Let’s get some left-handed batters into the side (Scrivens at least); and sort out the powerplay bowling to be more focussed on restriction and wicket taking early. Linsey Smith should not have been abandoned, and we can make more use of Dani Gibson, and other youngsters like RMG and Stonehouse who seems a very good powerplay bowler should be coming into the side. Other international sides seem to get their bowling plans right more often than we do – we shouldn’t be in a position where the captain can’t field and suddenly bowlers/fielders seem to have no clue what’s going on. The combination of correcting those aspects could be more of a recipe for success.
Maybe it’s time to stop making things difficult for ourselves, and start making things easier?
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