- England are facing the nightmare scenario of failing to qualify for Super Eights
- They will have to turn things around quickly and hope Scotland stay within reachÂ
- Captain Jos Buttler will struggle to remain in office after such a poor display
Two games into their World Cup defence, and England are facing the nightmare scenario of failing to qualify for the Super Eights after a dismal 36-run defeat by Australia at Kensington Oval.
If Tuesday’s rain-off against Scotland couldn’t be helped, their performance here veered between the headless, the hapless and the hopeless. It leaves them needing to beat both Oman and Namibia in Antigua, and pray that the Scots’ net run-rate doesn’t surpass theirs. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up.
Rob Key, the ECB’s managing director of men’s cricket, flies home on Sunday, but could find himself returning swiftly to the Caribbean if England bow out before what was supposed to be the start of the serious stuff.
Should that occur, it’s inconceivable that head coach Matthew Mott will stay in his job. Jos Buttler, too, will struggle to remain in office after a display that made a mockery of the small fortune England have spent on their vast backroom entourage.
Much has been made of the temporary signing of Kieron Pollard, the Barbadian former West Indies captain whose local knowledge has become the latest crutch for Mott and Buttler to lean on.
You didn’t need to be born in Bridgetown to know which way the wind was blowing, yet England repeatedly invited Australia’s big hitters to take advantage of the smaller boundary. The upshot was 13 sixes, 10 of them wind-assisted, in a total of 201 for seven, the highest of the World Cup.
Despite an opening stand of 73 in seven overs between Buttler and Phil Salt, who both fell to Adam Zampa’s leg-spin, Australia bowled with far more nous and skill to limit England’s six tally to eight, of which three were hit in one over by Moeen Ali off Glenn Maxwell.
Will Jacks never got going, and the second half of England’s innings was a painful watch. Jonny Bairstow, sluggish in the field, scratched around for seven off 13 balls, and Ben Duckett must come into contention for Thursday’s game against Oman, not least because England are short on left-handers.
The competitive tension had drained from the occasion long before Moeen sliced Pat Cummins to cover. Australia can barely have celebrated victory over the old enemy with as little gusto.
‘We were outplayed,’ said Buttler. ‘They fully deserved their win today. There are a few things we need to tidy up. We’ve got to be confident, keep our heads up, and puff our chests out.’ And the rest.
England had got off to a deceptively tidy start with the ball after Buttler won the toss, as Moeen – turning his off-breaks across left-handers Travis Head and David Warner – conceded just three from the first over.
But, not for the first time, the team thinktank out-thought itself. Instead of hitting Australia with off-spin at one end and raw pace at the other, Buttler threw the ball to Jacks, who had sent down only two overs in 14 previous T20 internationals.
Worse, his loopy off-breaks begged to be hit with the wind to the shorter of the square boundaries. Head duly mowed his first two balls for six, Warner added another, and the over cost 22. It may be the last Jacks bowls all tournament, and changed the game’s momentum in an instant.
And if either of the off-spinners was going to bowl at the trickier end, surely it had to be the vastly more experienced Moeen? Buttler described the decision to bowl Jacks as a ‘gut feel’.
Jofra Archer restored some calm with an over costing eight, before Warner – in possibly his final stoush with England before international retirement – helped Mark Wood’s first two balls into and over the Greenidge & Haynes Stand.
The Bajan dialect can be lost on foreign ears, but England’s body language needed no interpretation: hands on hips, heads bowed, they looked anything but defending champions.
By the time Warner was bowled for a 16-ball 39 by Moeen, Australia had an eye-watering 70 inside five overs. It was all rather Death in Paradise.
The surface already looked as if it might reward cutters and slower balls, which queried the continued omission of Reece Topley. And when a pumped-up Archer read the room, taking pace off to bowl Head for 34 off 18 and picking up his first wicket on his home ground, England had briefly stemmed the flow.
But Buttler’s side never shook off the sense that they were playing catch-up with their own expectations. Other than Archer and the underused Liam Livingstone, who had Mitchell Marsh stumped at the second attempt by Buttler for 35, the attack looked distinctly hittable.
Two wickets for Chris Jordan made him the second bowler, behind Adil Rashid, to collect 100 in T20 internationals, and cheered a decent crowd in which the locals were barracking for England – swayed, no doubt, by the presence of the Barbados-born Jordan and Archer.
Yet England had never chased more than 158 to beat Australia, and remain a team low on confidence and high on nervous tension after the fiasco of their 50-over title defence in India.
They may still emerge from the group stage, and embark on an unlikely path to glory. But they will have to turn things round quickly, and hope that Scotland – who play Oman on Sunday stay within reach. If there has been a more desperate blueprint to win a World Cup, it was hard to think of any last night in Bridgetown.