‘if root wants to rise above kohli he must up his game’
As England prepare for a huge summer starting with the Champions Trophy, David Gower, Nick Knight and Rob Key – who have a combined 219 ODI caps and 6,861 runs between them – discuss the big issues
Can you still believe England have never managed to win a major 50-over tournament? And how confident are you this could be their year? David Gower: “No one can be confident but they have played infinitely better in the last 24 months or so since the debacle of the last World Cup. It’s chalk and cheese, whichever is better is happening now. I prefer cheese personally.
“The cricket they have played has been exciting, they’ve won a lot of it so they must have confidence. They’ve got ability, they’ve got players. It’s easier to say that if they don’t win it this time then they’ve probably missed as good a chance as they’ve ever had because they’ve got such a good array of players. But as we saw last time (the 2016 World T20), they got themselves in a good position in the final, did all the hard work and that’s been the story of World Cups, Champions Trophies, all through the years. Get to the final, win it, job well done.” Nick Knight: “We’ve had the debacle in a lot of World Cups recently. People have talked about making change to perhaps management structures, philosophies and players etc. But I think this is the first time since that debacle where, actually someone has said ‘Let’s take this on board, and do something about it.’
“The attitude of the players is completely different and therefore, finally, things have been done. In past tournaments they kept falling into the same traps like changing players last minute. It appears they’re not going to do that this time so I think they’re in pretty good shape.” Where do you think the change has come from?
Rob Key: “Trevor Bayliss (the England coach) probably wouldn’t have had much of a clue about any of the players before they picked that first one-day side against New Zealand a couple of years ago. From then I think they’ve gelled quite well. But I’d say as captain Eoin Morgan deserves a lot of credit – with players they’ve picked but also the way they’ve gone about it. I think Bayliss, it’s the Aussie way: let the captain run the show. I captained Morgan on an A tour a few years ago and he was always very quiet, but he knew what was going on and he had a good read on the game, a good read on everything but he wouldn’t necessarily say it. The coaches at the time thought he wasn’t interested but I thought it was the opposite where actually he was switched on and he knew what was happening. He’d be the person you would turn to and say ‘What do you think of that? Do you think what we did there was good?’ He had a good read for everything. He can be as stubborn a person as I’ve come across.”
NK: “The modern player, now, naturally approaches the game differently to perhaps the way we would, saddled with a bit of fear of failure. But I think the modern player now, the way they’re playing T20 and the way they’re playing the game, is very different. Also, you’ve got to hand credit to the management – Paul Farbrace (assistant coach), Bayliss and Morgan for encouraging the players to play in that sort of fashion. So I think its a combination of those two factors.” We will be lucky enough to see the five best batsman of the modern era – Virat Kohli, Steve Smith, Kane Williamson, Joe Root and AB de Villiers in the Champions Trophy. What’s the pecking order?
DG: “That group at the top is excellent and would be top notch in any era. Having watched Kohli last winter, he was in form, as opposed to when he just threw it away against Australia. Watching them all, Smith looks appalling but gets results that everyone in the world would be jealous of, so mentally he must be incredibly strong. Williamson is a great player to watch, Root is great to watch. I think Root’s incentive now is that, although he berates himself when he gets 80s and not 100s, he knows what he wants to do. I think the incentive is right
Eoin Morgan had a good read for everything. He was switched on. He can be as stubborn a person as I have come across
there now to start doing it more often because he’d want to lead from the front as Test captain like Kohli does. So if he wants to be rated above them he needs to raise his game further. He has the talent to do it, and the mental capacity to do it but it’s just one of those things where you have to break through the ceiling. He’s consistently good but would want to be consistently better.” Do you think the captaincy will take away some of Root’s focus from batting?
DG: “No. If you look at Smith, Kohli, Williamson, it hasn’t dented their ability. If you want to lead from the front, then you have an extra incentive. Do whatever you did well before, then add to that to make yourself better and therefore extend your credibility as a leader. But then the complications come in because we expect so much from these people nowadays. There’s that human element. For instance, if Joe Root starts that series against South Africa with a hundred at Lord’s then his ability to make decisions, lead from the front, be exciting, be innovative will go up incrementally. If he gets a pair, it’s a very different psychology, so you have to be able to push yourself forward as one and the other, as player and captain.” What do you think of the ECB’s plans for the new Twenty20 tournament?
RK: “Now that I’m not playing, I’m actually a big fan. I think now as a player I would have been desperate to do it, whether I would have been good enough to get in it, I don’t know. Twenty20 for me was always just good fun, and I always valued four-day cricket and scoring hundreds as the be all and end all. Twenty20 started off as a bit of a holiday and now it’s the most fun you have in the county season.You go to the Oval in front of 20-odd thousand and I wish I would have played Twenty20 a bit more before I played for England because that would have helped me with the exposure that you get with big crowds and stuff like that.
“I see it as a no-lose bet where you do it and if it works great, the players will love it and there will be a much better product to watch and hopefully Twenty20 will be in the public consciousness of cricket, and then you can drag other people into other formats through that.
“If it doesn’t work then I just can’t see why you can’t go back? To me personally, I think it’s worth trying and worst-case scenario every county will end up with a lot more money than they already need.”
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