End most T20 internationals, argues Bayliss
Coach just wants a World Cup every four years England fail to reach final despite narrow win
Trevor Bayliss, the England head coach, called for Twenty20 internationals virtually to be scrapped after his team had failed to qualify for the tri-series final against Australia on Wednesday, even though England beat New Zealand in their last qualifying game by two runs.
“I wouldn’t play T20 internationals,” Bayliss said. “If you want to play a World Cup every four years or whatever it is, maybe six months before you get the international teams and let them play some T20 internationals. Otherwise, I’d just let the franchises play.”
It is a strong argument, but it has defects. If T20 internationals were scrapped for years on end, children would grow up without seeing their national team playing the most popular format. They would then transfer their allegiances all the more to T20 franchise teams.
In addition, the franchise tournaments around the world would expand to fill the space vacated by countries withdrawing from T20 internationals except for perhaps one year in four (the next World T20 finals will be in Australia in 2020). Only at the last minute last year did South Africa decide not to join the gravy train, and the spectre hanging over world cricket is India staging a second Indian Premier League every year – in North America.
Bayliss went on to attribute Australia’s supremacy in this tournament – they won all four of their qualifiers, England and New Zealand one each – to the fact that most of their players had been playing in their domestic Big Bash.
“I think it’s quite obvious their players have just come out of two months of T20 cricket,” he said. “Both New Zealand and England have been playing other forms of the game.”
The more immediate question is whether an England tour of more than five months should include T20s as well as the Ashes and two Tests against New Zealand and a five-match one-day series against both countries. Of course not. But this is the price that players and coaches have to pay for administrative greed.
There is no such thing as a free fixture. For every home game there has to be an away one: it is in the contract for bilateral series. England were playing in Hamilton yesterday because in the summer the England and Wales Cricket Board and so many counties want their pounds of players’ flesh. Last summer England played 21 games, over 49 scheduled days, at 11 grounds – not including the Champions Trophy. Lord’s had two Tests and two one-dayers. Even Southampton staged three England games, Bristol two and Taunton one.
Will these insatiable demands ever be reduced? Highly unlikely. The best would have been for England to play their T20s much closer together: say on a Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, first in Australia, then in New Zealand. Their one-day series against Australia ended on Jan 28, so this tri-series will meander for three weeks. Given a more concise schedule, England could have got home in March, not April.
Eoin Morgan, Engand’s captain, was more concerned with his side’s poor performance in the tri-series, though he himself hit a match-winning 80 off 46 balls in the final game. “It didn’t feel like a win,” he said. “Certainly going out there at the halfway stage we knew that 174 was the target we were trying to defend.” But New Zealand reached that objective with 11 balls to spare to reach the final – at Eden Park against Australia – on net run-rate.
“We had absolutely no right to be in the final,” Morgan openly admitted. “We played terribly in the tri-series. We played well today, did enough to win but not enough to go through, but that has been the story of the trip. We’ve been caught on the hop – particularly against Australia we were terrible. We didn’t bat, bowl or field well. That is disappointing because confidence was quite high coming in from the oneday series, but it hasn’t continued.”
Although Morgan said the reasons for England’s bad tri-series were “hard to pinpoint”, it is easy to single out several, like the poor opening partnership, which produced a highest stand of 22 in the four games. Not quite on a par with New Zealand’s Martin Guptill and Colin Munro, who gets under the ball by crouching low, though they were helped by the ground being dewy and the ball skidding through when England bowled.
A powerplay of 77 for no wicket was almost enough to ensure that New Zealand would qualify. In his first two overs, from David Willey and Tom Curran, Munro was donated a ball outside leg stump which he swung for six, and he kept on swinging until he had hit three fours and seven sixes off 21 balls. When the spinners came on, they pegged New Zealand back but not enough for England to qualify.
Other reasons for England’s poor tri-series were that they did not have any all-rounders in the absence of Moeen Ali and Ben Stokes; their pace bowlers’ lack of expertise with slower balls by comparison with Australia’s, though not New Zealand’s; and the reckless nature of some of their batting, especially when they lost five wickets in six overs of orthodox and unexceptional spin by Australia in Hobart. Too many of England’s T20 batsmen could not distinguish between fearless and brainless cricket.
The exception was Dawid Malan, who reached 50 in three of his four innings – and has four 50s in his five T20I innings in all, at a strikerate of 150. After the latest poor start of 24 for two, Malan had to seize the initiative on a soft pitch and with excellent footwork against spin hit five sixes.
Another Middlesex left-hander, Morgan, followed his example with six sixes, but nobody else totalled 75 in the tri-series.