Pace is great but it has to be accurate pace like Azmatullah Omarzai showed. He is not express and largely does not have all of the tricks but he runs in hard, is accurate and bowls to his field – something England have struggled to do.
While they largely picked their best players in this tournament, Buttler and coach Brendon McCullum put all of their eggs into the pace basket – picking Archer and Mark Wood in both games and swapping Jamie Overton for Brydon Carse in the second – and it has never looked right as an attack.
Add in that England have always been juggling their resources having picked only four frontline bowlers, making up the numbers with Joe Root and Liam Livingstone, and it is clear mistakes have been made.
You need five proper bowlers in an ODI so the management has to take some of the blame for that but again we come back to the fact English cricket does not take 50-over cricket seriously.
All of these issues – the failure to lay a platform when batting and an inability to be consistent with the ball – are because the players are not used to playing the format.
The next generation are not playing it because the domestic competition [The One-Day Cup] has been downgraded and when the summer comes you can bet many key players will not feature against West Indies in May and June and South Africa in September because they will be wrapped up in cotton wool for the Ashes.
Unless that changes I don’t think we can be surprised by these results.
As for Brook, he has had a poor start to 2025 with an average of 16.90 across 10 matches in 50 and 20-over cricket – but we know he can play.
There are not many options to replace Buttler but Brook seems the most credible. He has done it before, in the five-match series against Australia last September, which will have at least got him thinking about captaincy while on the field.
We do not know how good a skipper he may be but those close to the camp speak highly of his cricket brain. That said, this England group is always bigging each other up so it is hard to know.
Ultimately, it can only be shown by results and performances but, if Brook does take over, he will have a nice run up to 2027.
Buttler still has years ahead as a player. He can still make his mark too.
Source link : https://www.bbc.com/sport/cricket/articles/crknek1pxz2o
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Publish date : 2025-02-26 21:31:28
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