England model to provide road map for 2023 event Aussies plan for Cup
AUSTRALIA will start planning for the 2023 World Cup in India as countries look to replicate the England model of investing in a meticulous fouryear build with a squad designed for the future.
Coach Justin Langer has publicly lauded how the Aussies’ semi-final conqueror selected both the guts of its World Cup team and its game plan all the way back in 2015.
Seven Englishmen who played in yesterday’s thumping eight-wicket win against an imploding Australia at Edgbaston also lined up in the country’s first ODI after the 2015 cup, when they posted 9/408 in a 210-run win against New Zealand.
“After a World Cup you always start looking and you have one eye towards the next one,” captain Aaron Finch said.
“As a management (and) senior players, I’m sure over the next couple of months we will sit down and start talking about that.
“(We’ll) start planning how we think that we can best prepare and improve over the next four years to get us to go two steps further.
“I think every team will do that. You start looking at what you can improve most and areas that you can identify that you need to work on. That happens naturally with players.”
Australia’s forward thinking will also involve steeling a white-ball squad for the home Twenty20 World Cup in 15 months.
While Finch’s captaincy was one of Australia’s highlights in England, the 2023 vision could see vice-captain Alex Carey eventually take over with an eye to 2023.
Former captain Steve Smith, 30, will also be eligible for leadership positions by then. Top order batsmen Finch, David Warner and Usman Khawaja will all be 36 come the next World Cup.
Finch said it was crucial coaches and management were “on the same page” and everyone “pulls in the same direction”, which Australia started to do when it tore up its ODI template last December.
While England spent four years building for 2019, Australia’s charge began with a four-hour crisis meeting during the Boxing Day Test.
The Aussies lost 22 out of 26 ODIS before overhauling the team and winning 15 out of 16 ODIS as it led the World Cup ladder with one game remaining.
But England captain Eoin Morgan boasted unrivalled continuity after conceding his team was at ground zero in 2015. “You can look back and say what you want about the (2015) World Cup, but I’m looking forward,” Morgan said four years ago.
“There’s about 90 games until the next World Cup and we need to get some games into this team.”
After South Africa crashed out its captain Faf du Plessis said “in a perfect world, yes we would” strip it back and start planning for 2023 now.
Morgan conceded his team, which is through to England’s first World Cup final since 1992, was “way off the mark” in 2015. “In 2015 we struggled against the top teams, and the teams that sat below that, so there was a drastic change in the way we played.”