England knocked out of World Twenty20
To be honest, this was probably as far as they were expected to get. That they managed to bounce back from the humiliation against Holland was creditable, and the victory over India was a feather in their cap.
But, for any improvements made, England are carrying too many accumulators in their middle order and often stall towards the end of the innings as a result. All of their three defeats in this tournament were as a result of not setting a high enough target.
| Match | 1st 10 overs | 2nd 10 overs | Diff +/- | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holland | 89-0 | 73-5 | -16 | 162-5 |
| Pakistan | 90-2 | 95-3 | +5 | 185-5 |
| South Africa | 47-3 | 64-7 | +17 | 111 |
| India | 71-1 | 82-6 | +11 | 153-7 |
| West Indies | 83-2 | 78-4 | -5 | 161-6 |
It is no coincidence that in their victories against Pakistan and India, England were able to accelerate the scoring rate in the second half of their innings.
Against Holland and West Indies, they were not able to maintain the momentum from the early part of the innings and suffered as a result. This wasn’t the case in the match against South Africa, but on this occasion they were blown away for only 111, their lowest ever T20 total.
What does this mean in real terms? The likes of Collingwood and Shah are plucky nurdlers, but perhaps not best suited to blasting a few boundaries at the end of an innings. Against Holland the selection was wrong, and the team was complacent. And when they did add a lower order hitter – Dmitri Mascarenhas – he was only able to score at a run-a-ball for the tournament, lower than Collingwood and Shah achieved.
There have been plusses – the top 3 of Bopara and Wright did reasonably well, James Foster was excellent behind the stumps and the bowling was generally good, the match against Holland excluded. Stuart Broad was the best of the attack, with an economy rate of just 6.5 and a strike rate of 16. Many criticised Rashid’s selection, but he performed better than expected and did not look out of place.
By far the biggest plus for me was the form of Pietersen – he had a poor time in the IPL, and the talk was that he had yet to figure Twenty20 out. We can put that concern aside now.
The priority for moving forward will be finding some proper batsmen who can score runs quickly to bolster the middle order. Too often England were limited to rotating the strike, as they went for long spells without being able to find the boundary, and against Holland they were unable to clear the rope at all.
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