BIRMINGHAM: “England’s current form makes them one of the tournament favourites,” reads a line on a graffiti on teams at Edgbaston. How very ironic then that England head into the last two matches of the league phase with the sword of elimination hanging over their head. Defeat against India on Sunday could well mean end of the road for them.
World No 1 before the start of the World Cup, convincing victories over every team at home and a batting line-up making 350 look like child’s play --- many indicators were pointing towards a first-ever English triumph. With conditions changing slightly in favour of bowlers, their bat big strategy has fallen flat and led to this dramatic change in fate.
Other than the threat of getting knocked out, they also carry injury concerns over Jason Roy and Joffra Archer into a match where Indians are expected to outnumber English fans in the stands. Captain Eoin Morgan said on Saturday playing the Men in Blue is like playing an away game. So on several fronts, his team is going to be under pressure.
“Too much power-hitting,” said Nicholas, who runs a pub in the Bearwood area of the city. “Against Sri Lanka they had to get only 230 (233 to win) and batted as if they were chasing 400. Can’t do that all the time... Should have batted more sensibly. It looks as if they can play only in one gear.” His outburst summed up the angst of the average English cricket fan.
Other than this one-dimensional approach, England have looked below-par also because of the pitches. In the bilateral series they won in the last few years, the surfaces favoured heavy scoring, without offering anything to the bowlers. With ICC supervising preparations for the World Cup, this has evened out and caught England on the wrong foot. Their strategy to pack the line-up with big-hitters hasn’t worked.
“We want to play on the best possible wicket, preferably a batting wicket. We bat deep. We bat strong. We tend to play well in high-scoring games. It's an area we'd be more confident playing,” said Morgan. “Where we've let ourselves down as a group is adapting to conditions. It's been a bigger challenge in this World Cup than previous bilateral series that we've played. For us the challenge now is being better at adapting to conditions.”
Adapting to conditions does not only mean showing better application on slower pitches against slower bowlers. Playing against India, Morgan’s men will also have to contend with a vocal crowd, in which a majority are expected to be Indians. So even though India will wear the ‘away’ team jersey, England may not enjoy that much of ‘home’ advantage.
“I sort of recall the Champions Trophy final (2013) that we played against India here the last time was a complete away game. Again, we have a number of fans in the ground, but just the noise that the Indian fans make with their horns and various different things makes it that much more louder. Yeah, tomorrow is going to feel like an away game,” said Morgan.
Add former players Michael Vaughan and Kevin Pietersen being critical of this lot and suddenly, the home team finds itself in all sorts of difficulties. They can still qualify, but the task involves surmounting challenges of different hues, a lot of those unforeseen.