It hurts now, but future is bright
ENGLAND REVOLUTION AHEAD OF SCHEDULE
It may be scant consolation now for an England side who came so desperately close to a second World twenty20 title, but when the dust settles on a compelling final, Eoin morgan and his young team will know they are at the start of their journey.
No- one realistically expected England to be contenders in this tournament, not even after all the spectacular progress they have made in limited-overs cricket since the low of their worst ever 50- over World Cup just 12 months ago.
they are way ahead of the schedule set by andrew Strauss when he insisted on his appointment as team director a year ago that white- ball cricket should finally be treated as seriously as the test game England still hold so dear.
It is the Champions trophy next year and the 2019 World Cup that Strauss is desperate to win — or at least challenge for — and England’s nailbiting progress to yesterday’s Eden Gardens final must be considered as a thrilling bonus.
yet how heartbreaking the denouement was for an England team who did not know when they were beaten throughout a tournament they came so close to exiting at the hands of South africa, afghanistan and then Sri Lanka.
Spare a thought, too, for Ben Stokes, who may have got his line and length fatally wrong in that last over but who fell victim to an extraordinary display of hitting and nerve from a world star in the making in Carlos Brathwaite.
England should take strength from how agonisingly near they came to an extraordinary victory in the sub- continental conditions that have traditionally proved devilishly difficult for them to conquer.
and all without the extensive Indian Premier League experience that some commentators so obsessively believed was crucial for England to make an impact.
this would have been a bigger win than their World twenty20 triumph in 2010, especially as they went into this tournament on the back of five successive defeats in South africa and then lost their first game to West Indies.
NEvER mind. England have come a very long way from the dark days of their 5-0 ashes defeat in test cricket just over two years ago and a World Cup in australia and New Zealand last year when their old-fashioned methods were ruthlessly exposed.
England’s ashes victory last year and their test success in South africa, coupled with the transformation of the limited-overs side, justifies the tough calls that were made in the wake of that ashes humiliation Down Under.
When England capitulated in the final test in South africa in January I said that, whisper it, they remained a special test team in the making. and I expect them to win all seven tests this summer against Sri Lanka and Pakistan.
Now, against all historical odds, England have a special white-ball team in the making, too, full of impressive cricketers and characters who are also fabulous role models for a public falling back in love with the national summer sport. Cricketers such as Joe Root, Jos Buttler, Stokes and moeen ali are not only among the most exciting talents in the world but are also engaging and likeable young men who play the game, encouraged by the coaching combination of trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace, in the right, joyful way.
Contrast that with the joyless way the England team that had so much success in winning the ashes home and away and went to No 1 in the world test rankings, not to mention the World twenty20 title, fell apart so acrimoniously.
the future remains very bright for England, as it hopefully does for West Indies, too.
this was probably the best of the six World twenty20 events to date. this glittering format is the game’s present and future, no question, but that should not sound the death knell for the ultimate form of the game — test cricket.
to me, short-form cricket should exclusively be played over 20 overs now while efforts are continued to protect the primacy of test cricket.
Cricket administrators around the world remain greedy and unable to grasp the prospect of less is more. the success of twenty20 has given the game the opportunity to embrace the modern world but something has to give.
Unless that something is 50-over cricket then it is impossible to see the test game surviving in the medium term, let alone long term, but cricket has a golden opportunity now to move forward with confidence with winning formulas in tests and twenty20.
the sadness is that the game’s rulers will probably not have the foresight to grasp the chance in front of them by streamlining the calendar. Cricket is at a crossroads and three formats are unworkable.
yes, something has to give and it is certainly not going to be twenty20. Nor should it be.