ENGLAND ARE PACE INVADERS

But do they need both Archer and Wood?

Jofra archer was built up as something special ahead of his introduction to international cricket and I must admit I was a little concerned he might not be able to live up to it.

We have all seen players struggle to establish themselves after being made to wait before qualifying for england and I did wonder whether archer, with all the hype and expectation, might be one of them. There was no need to worry.

Within the first over I saw archer bowl for england at the oval — I had not seen too much of him before that and was not in Dublin for his debut — I had the same feeling as when I first saw Jimmy anderson as england captain all those years ago.

archer makes bowling fast look ridiculously easy. Both Jofra and Mark Wood have been bowling extremely quickly in this World cup but you would say archer has more wicket-taking potential as he does slightly more with the ball.

also, he is very upright and gets close to the stumps which means, especially against left-handers, he brings lbw and bowled much more into the equation. Wood, in contrast, leans away a little bit and pitches the ball outside the left-hander’s leg stump.

Just look at the ball that dismissed Soumya Sarkar in cardiff. It was an absolute jaffa well in excess of 90 miles per hour, nipped back in, trimmed the bails and went flying over the boundary for ‘six’! Would you want to be facing something like that?

archer just jogs in too. It must be like facing a bowling machine and someone turning it up from 80 to 90 mph without telling you. The Bangladesh openers Sarkar and Tamim Iqbal are proper players, but they were hanging back and did not fancy it at all. That’s what extra pace does to you.

archer has certainly proved himself an excellent addition to an england squad that needed an injection of pace. he has brought that X-factor.

Now they have found real pace in not just archer too but also Wood and the only question is whether they need both of them in their first choice one-day attack.

england thought they had a difficult decision in who to leave out of their World cup squad — in the end the unlucky man was David Willey — but actually the toughest call is who to leave out of the biggest matches as the tournament develops. If you do want archer and Wood in the same team as on Saturday then who misses out?

Liam Plunkett was omitted against Pakistan at Trent Bridge but that proved a mistake as they missed him in the middle overs. adil rashid and Moeen ali, left out against Bangladesh, have both been superb over a sustained period while chris Woakes is exceptional with the new ball. What england must not do as the tournament goes on is be shortterm about their selection. Two games ago archer was smashed around Trent Bridge. Look at how he bowled in cardiff.

Now people are starting to ask questions about Woakes because he has been a bit expensive at times in this cup but just look at how he has bowled in white-ball cricket over the last year or so and his current 50- over ranking of ninth in the world. Look at when he bowls too: invariably it is in the most difficult phases of an innings,

right at the start and at the end when players are teeing off.

England have based much of their white-ball success in giving batsmen extended opportunities and not losing faith with them after a couple of failures. They must show even more belief in their bowling attack because of how tough the job now is. Don’t have knee-jerk reactions if someone goes for 90 in 10 overs because it will happen.

That is why I was pleased Rashid played against Bangladesh. he has been instrumental in England’s success, has always enjoyed the full backing of Eoin Morgan and has been right up there with the best of them in taking wickets.

Yes he has been a little out of form but a leg-spinner has to bowl and the way Morgan has handled Rashid has been one of his biggest ticks. Traditionally in English cricket we have not used wrist spinners as well as we should have.

Perhaps because of our conditions spinners have been used primarily to contain in limited-overs cricket but Morgan has shown if you back someone like Rashid, give him the right fields and bowl him at the right times he will deliver for you.

Adil might go around with a bit of a swagger but he actually needs an arm round his shoulder and in picking him on Saturday Morgan did just that. The only question for him now is who misses out against West Indies on Friday. It is far from an easy decision.