England need some serious workout in this format. They also seem at loss on how to play on slow tracks of sub continent. The huge margins that England lost by in most of the matches should worry their fans.
England need to review quite a few things :
- Openers. Whether the pinch-hitting keeper has worked, will work or if we are better served by a keeper down the order who can do a Dhoni rather than persist in trying to make joe ordinary into Gilchrist
- Batting. The balance and positions of the batting order are important, not having too many accumulaters and having a balance of attacking, nurdlers and stalwarts. England seem to focus heavily on attacking at the top of the order, I worked out from the SRs and average balls faced of Trott and Kieswetter that you might get an extra five runs for the amount of balls Kieswetter faced on average, but then lose his wicket while Trott continues with a better average. Or put another way quick runs vs more runs gives you five quicker runs which in a total isn't a lot.
- Balance of the side. Five bowlers looks to be a must, England bowlers didn't take enough wickets.
- Number seven. To do with the balance of the side, with six batsmen including the keeper occupying slots 1-6 there needs to be a genuine all-rounder in the number seven slot. England at the moment are playing quasi-all-rounders who are either a batsman who bowls a bit eg Patel, or a bowler who is handy with the bat eg Bresnan. England need to have someone who can score 50+ more often than Bresnan, who can take wickets more often than Patel
- 'Muddle overs'. With a full five bowlers this may become less of an issue, but England need to stop focusing on getting through their weaker bowler allocations and most certainly when a crux period is reached. England bring on a minimum threat bowler when they have sides on 50/3, 80/3 and worse. Instead of applying pressure England too often release it, too much worried about bowling their 50 overs instead of realising it may not go 50 overs and keeping the game in the balance or worse.
- ODI players. Should England pick so many Test players? Does this mean Cook, KP, Trott, Swann etc are playing too much cricket? Are some of them TRULY the best ODI options or are there players as good or nearly as good who have more hunger?
- Captaincy. Not convinced Cook is doing much right, captaincy in Tests is so much less demanding than in ODIs because you can bat on in Tests for as long as you have wickets, you can bring back your best bowler and rotate to your hearts content and there's no pressure to save 5-10 runs here and there, to score quickly, no time to rebuild the innings properly or wait for the new ball.
Btw, don't even bother the ODIs, 'cause I'm one of the many fans to instantaneously admit that England are horrible in that format of the game. As is evident from this post where I tipped a 3-2 win for either side prior to the ODI series in England.
