AHMEDABAD: On July 11, 2019, when England and Australia last played each other in the ODI World Cup – in the semifinals in Birmingham – the latter won the ‘mini Ashes’ contest by a mile, hammering their traditional foes by eight wickets to march into the final.
After Chris Woakes and Adil Rashid took three wickets each to bowl out the Aussies for 223, England, playing an exciting brand of cricket in that tournament, rode on power-packed knocks by Jason Roy (85 off 65 balls), Joe Root (49 not out) and skipper Eoin Morgan (45 not out) to sprint to the target by the 33rd over.
Four years, though, can be a long time in a cricket team’s fortunes, which, in England’s case in this World Cup, have dipped as sharply as the stocks of a loss-making company. Coming in as the defending champions and sporting the favourites tag after their triumph in the T20 World Cup last year, England have disappointed in this tournament, having lost five of their six games – the solitary win coming against Bangladesh – to crash out in the league stage itself.
It’s the worst run for a title-holder since 1999, when Sri Lanka lost three out of five games and failed to make the ‘Super Six’ stage.
Confused with their over-attacking approach, saddled with players who are perhaps past their sell-by date and bungling with their selections, they’ve almost been like a parody account of the real deal they were at home in 2019.
On the eve of his team’s match against England at the Narendra Modi Stadium here, Australian captain Pat Cummins was asked whether the arch-rivals’ struggles in this World Cup had astonished him a bit. “A little bit surprised,” he said.
“They’ve got some class players and performed really well in these kinds of tournaments over the last few years. A little bit surprised in terms of what’s gone wrong and probably not for me to say. These tournaments are pretty fickle; you see it in T20 tournaments around the world, sometimes the best-looking teams just don’t start off well and then find it hard to kind of gain ground.”
Nevertheless, if there is something that would assuage England’s hurt feelings and pride, it is playing party pooper to Australia. It won’t be difficult for England to find the motivation to down their old rivals, said England’s Test captain Ben Stokes. “England-Australia in any sport whenever the two nations play against each other, it’s always a big occasion,” he asserted.
After a slow start, the Aussies are looking more and more dangerous and are now gunning for a place in the semifinals. By smashing a 67-ball 109 against New Zealand in the last game in Dharamshala, Travis Headone of the most dangerous openers in the game currently, never gave the impression that this was his first game back from injury. Head and fellow opener David Warner, who has slammed two centuries in this World Cup, added 175 in just 19.1 overs in Dharamshala to out-bat the Kiwis at the start itself. Leggie Adam Zampa always manages a way to find wickets, while Cummins was cranking it up nicely in the last match.
However, the fact that the Aussies are missing two of their big guns – Glenn Maxwell (out due to freak injury) and Mitchell Marsh (left for home to attend a personal emergency) makes them slightly vulnerable on Saturday. Another big motivation for England, currently placed 10th and on the last spot, would be to somehow muster enough inspiration to finish in the top eight to qualify for the 2025 Champions Trophy in Pakistan.
After this match, England will play the Netherlands in Pune on November 8 and Pakistan at Kolkata on November 11. Stokes felt that England, still harbouring slim hopes and a mathematical chance should they win all their remaining games and the other results go their way, needed to play well from here in order to at least restore their pride.
“We’ve had a disastrous World Cup and there’s no point sugarcoating that. It’s the truth. But we know we’ve got a lot to play for. The biggest thing that we’ve got to play for is the pride of what it is to put the three lions on your chest, walking out every time,” said Stokes.
