England’s Twenty20 Flowering

Stuart Broad concedes an overthrow as England lose to Holland in 2009

5th June 2009.  The final ball of the opening match of the 2009 World Twenty20 at Lord’s.

Stuart Broad collects the ball in his follow through and shies at the stumps.  He misses, the batsmen complete the 1st run and turn for a second to win the match for Holland.

It was the 4th wicket taking opportunity in that final over that Broad had failed to take.  Had he taken 1 of them, England likely would have scraped the narrowest of wins.

But he didn’t, and England lost amidst worldwide pointing and laughing.

Perhaps in the light of yesterday’s decisive victory over Australia in the 2010 final, it was a good thing for English cricket in the long run.

Of the XI who took the field that day, only 5 remained in the victorious 2010 vintage.  England undoubtedly underestimated Holland – Pietersen and Swann were left out – but it was the lessons learned in that match and the rest of the tournament that enabled the team to move forward.

The rise of Eoin Morgan meant that there was no place for Owais Shah in the side, and Luke Wright was dropped down the order from his position as opener in 2009.  Wright is a good hitter of the ball, but his limitations make him more suited to the cameo role in the middle order.

The return to form of Kevin Pietersen has been crucial.  It was a miserable 15 months for Pietersen who, it was said before the 2009 tournament, had been slow to adapt his game to Twenty20.  Few would argue against his selection as player of the tournament, or that he is now one of the best in the world in the 20 over format.  The continued apathy towards KP amongst English fans and media is a complete mystery to me.

Tim Bresnan was derided as a bits and pieces performer with a penchant for pies when he was first drafted into the England side, but has proven himself to be  a canny performer with the ball, both during the opening powerplay overs and at the end of the innings.

Another key turning point was a trial match between England and England Lions in February, one which the senior XI lost due to a vicious assault by the Lions openers, Michael Lumb and Craig Kieswetter.  The emergence of Kieswetter was particularly important.  Matt Prior had up to that point been the resident ‘keeper, batting at 6 or 7.  By bringing in Kieswetter to open and keep wicket, England were able to replace two men and strengthen their spin bowling attack.

The man that was chosen to fill that role was not Adil Rashid, nor James Tredwell but instead the Sussex captain Mike Yardy.  This ranks as Andy Flower’s most astute choice of all – Kieswetter has long been tipped as an England star of the future – for Yardy is, for the most part, an accumulating batsman who can bowl a few overs.  For England, he bats as low as 9 and is in the side because of the way his bowling compliments that of Graeme Swann.

Aside from the obvious left arm/right arm combination, their styles of bowling are also a perfect fit.  Swann is an attacking, wicket taker who bowls with flight and spin.  Yardy is a converted medium pace bowler who runs in off a couple of paces and fires in 60mph darts that are hard for batsmen to attack.  Kind of like Sanath Jayasuriya with hair.

It now seems unthinkable that anyone other than Andy Flower should have been appointed as England’s coach, but beforehand there was a sizeable groundswell 0f opinion that he lacked the experience, that he was just Peter Moores’s man.  How wrong that has been proven to be.

He has taken a test side that was in dissaray after the Pietersen sacking, and constructed a tough, durable team that was able to grind out an Ashes win and then a creditable draw in South Africa.  This whilst dealing with a dressing room that was being disrupted by it’s “lynchpin”, Andrew Flintoff.

But turning England into a competitive limited overs side is an even greater achievement.  Not since the early ’90s have they been so consistently dismissive of quality opponents in a major tournament.  It’s not just the fact that they won the trophy, but the way they dominated matches against teams they would have struggled against in recent times.

The next frontier for Flower will be to win the Ashes in Australia, and England will be confident of being able to do it.  To become the best in the world in the longer format, they will need to add the attacking flair that will allow them to dominate side in Test matches in the way they can now do in Twenty20.

In the meantime, Flower will deserve all of the plaudits that are heading his way.

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