Moments ago, England crashed out of the 2015 Cricket World
Cup. It has been a long time coming, but with the format as it is, until this
morning they still looked set to make the quarterfinals. But they didn’t.
A hugely frustrating run chase that saw a steady start, a stuttering middle, a Jos Buttler-inspired rally and a tame end saw the Three Lions come up 15 runs short of Bangladesh's 275-7. This leaves them on two points after only one win in their first five games, unable to make the top four.
Rather than carry out the same post-mortem as everyone else,
lambasting and lamenting the effort of the 15 professionals sent Down Under to
do a job, I’ll simply say what England’s World Cup efforts have taught me.
This is the first global tournament to feature the key rule
changes to ODI cricket that have seen different balls used at each end and a
reduction in fielders allowed outside the circle. The experiment hasn't
worked, and English trials and tribulations have only served to emphasise the
point.
When the new playing conditions were introduced it was with
the aim of making the game more exciting, compared to its little brother, T20.
More runs were to be scored, with the aim of keeping the interest of fans for
100 overs of cricket.
After a while my observation was that it didn’t necessarily
mean it would be easier to score every time. I thought the new rules served to
emphasise and exaggerate the other factors on display. If it’s a good batting
pitch, even more runs will come. But if conditions are favouring bowlers and
the fielding side is on top, forcing the captain to bring an extra fielder up
can make scoring even harder in the middle overs too.
During this World Cup, and particularly in England matches,
I have seen more areas where match factors are exaggerated. Simply put, the
conditions make the better side even better. Weaker bowlers are given a smaller
margin for error and stronger batsmen are given more room and opportunity to
score their runs, which inevitably makes the gap between sides even bigger.
Two examples of this are the way England’s bowlers have gone
to all parts in the latter overs of the innings, and the results of the Irish
team. Most teams have struggled to contain batsmen in these overs, but the England
attack, lacking a clear plan or any semblance of confidence, has suffered more
than most.
Ireland have beaten West Indies, UAE and Zimbabwe in this
tournament and been one of the bright sparks of the whole event, but when they
faced South Africa they didn’t have a prayer. I’m sure that a side full of
confidence and with some very useful cricketers would have given the South
African’s a much better game had they not been faced with the current fielding
regulations that saw the last 15 overs they bowled disappear for 200 runs.
The other thing that the new rules has exaggerated and
intensified is the importance and affect of runs on the board. In good batting
conditions 300 is no longer enough but even if 350 is a ‘par score’, chasing it
is some challenge. There have been 18 scores of 300 or more in the first
innings showing the opportunity to go big is there, but only two of these have
been chased successfully.
More tellingly though none of the scores over 310, let alone
the scores upwards of 350 or 400, have been successfully chased. The
opportunity to score 100 or more in the last ten overs is undoubtedly there,
but doing that to set a score has proven immeasurably easier than doing it
because you need to when chasing one down.
It’s not the battle between bat and ball that has reached an
untenable level, but the battle between batting first and second. The
experiment hasn’t worked.
