Misfiring batters need to learn from savvy Stokes
Ben kept his head as others threw wickets away
IT IS a question that goes to the heart of the philosophy that has brought England so much white-ball success since the Eoin Morgan-inspired revolution of 2015.
Can they play the situation in front of them or are they still, in effect, flat- track bullies who know only one way to bat whatever the conditions — attack, attack, attack?
It was only Ben Stokes who realised on Saturday that England needed to nudge the ball around and add the odd boundary once Jos Buttler and Alex Hales had taken them to 75 without loss in reply to Sri Lanka’s 141 for eight at the SCG.
And it was a good job for England he kept his head while all around him were losing theirs because they nearly blew their big chance to reach the semi-finals of this unpredictable World Cup by imploding in the face of Sri Lankan spin.
Liam Livingstone, Moeen Ali and, to a lesser extent, Sam Curran all gave it away with desperately poor shot selection while Harry Brook was again dismissed cheaply and has still to show on an Australian stage just what all the fuss is about. It left England mightily relieved when Chris Woakes cut Lahiru Kamara to the boundary with just two balls remaining to take England over the line and on to Adelaide where they will play India in a mouth-watering semi-final on Thursday.
The mitigating circumstance is that this key encounter was, inexplicably, played on a pitch previously used for two other matches in this tournament and batting clearly got harder for both sides the longer the innings went on and the softer the ball became.
The charitable view is England are learning to win ugly but their misfiring batters cannot afford to get it wrong again even though they have, admittedly, twice bucked the trend of this World Cup by winning while chasing.
However, the one man other than Stokes who can anchor a T20 innings is Dawid Malan, who is now a serious doubt for the rest of this tournament after tweaking his left groin in the field at the SCG and taking no part in the nervy run-chase.
If Malan cannot play on Thursday then England will bring in either the only other specialist batter in their squad, Phil Salt, or add another death bowling option in Chris Jordan and hope the rest of the batters can learn from the example of Stokes.
If England need a squad replacement then Liam Dawson is the only real choice among England’s three travelling reserves but there is the intriguing possibility that they might go outside and pick one of those arriving on Wednesday for three one- day internationals against Australia after the World Cup. If so, James Vince and even Jason Roy are alternatives.
The good news is that the Adelaide Oval will provide a fresh pitch for the semi-finals, which should suit England’s strokeplay, but they will still want their batters to emulate Stokes, whose presence in this squad has been widely questioned. Stokes has not looked remotely like a modern T20 batter in this tournament, not even when he brought a bit of old-fashioned nous to this chase. But his unbeaten 42 with just two fours is exactly why he remains one of the first names on the England team-sheet.
Mark Wood said: ‘I know people have questioned his place in the team but when you need him
he stands up. That’s another moment in his career where we will look back and say, “When the team needed him he was the man to count on”.
‘Ben never looked fazed or anything like that because he has been there and done it. You think he is under pressure but he takes it in his stride.’
So England still have much to do to prove that they can
unite the 50- over and T20 world titles — starting with adding more of the Stokes substance
to their undoubted batting style.