England hit for 6 by Bangladesh... Just what went wrong?

In the midst of England's elimination from the ICC cricket world cup 2015 on Monday, following a 15 run defeat to Bangladesh. I thought i'd provide a self-opinionated reflection and evaluation of Englands performances in the last month.

In order to attempt to understand just where the ECB have gone wrong and how they can improve. I have talked a little about this before in my 1st blog about 'Englands slump in form in ODI'. Just to provide a quick overall summary....

So far England have played 5 times in this 2015 world cup, below are the results from them games:

Vs. Australia, 111 run defeat

Vs. New Zealand, 8 wicket defeat

Vs. Scotland, 119 victory

Vs. Sri Lanka, 9 wicket defeat

Vs. Bnagladesh, 15 run defeat

Vs. Afghanistan TBC

These results have left England 3rd bottom of the group, behind only Scotland and Afghanistan.Both of whom are not test playing nations, so its quite obvious that things aren't right within the England camp... but just what is that exactly????

Are the right players playing if so... are they in the right position?

In my opinion this is a simple answer... NO, Gary Balance played 4 too many games before he was eventually replaced by Alex Hales, who should've been playing from the start. His game is very one dimensional which is very well suited for test match but not for ODI's and especially not when the player he is keeping out of the England team is the world No1 T20 player (Alex Hales). Also with regards to the bowling attack... Anderson, Broad, Woakes, Finn and Ali are the named front line bowlers. But lets explore this further...

This world cup is being held in Australia and New Zealand, and we are playing two swing bowlers in Anderson and Woakes in a part of the world were the ball hardly swing if at all. I can understand the reasons behind playing Woakes, because he is one for the future but the decision to continue with Anderson is one the baffles me, yes he has been one of England's best bowler in the last 5 years, but it has been proven that when the ball isn't swinging he's not as effective... so far in this world cup he has taken just 4 wickets.

But its not just as case of are the right players playing, its also important for them to be in the right positions. To which frankly at the moment they are not. James Taylor had a lot of success at no.3 in the summer ODI's, but in this world cup he was moved down to no.5, Jos Butler 'the finisher', who this world cup has scored... 10, 3, 24, 39* and 65 is coming in at 7, surely if we are going to up the run rate in the last 15 overs, he needs to be coming in earlier.

Below is the actual starting XI for the games against Bangladesh, compared to my XI:

Actual XI Lyle's XI

Moeen Ali Moeen Ali

Ian Bell Alex Hales

Alex Hales James Taylor

Joe Root Joe Root

Eoin Morgan James Vince/ Sam Billings

James Taylor Jos Butler

Jos Butler Eoin Morgan

Chris Woakes Chris Woakes

Stuart Broad Chris Jordan

Steve Finn Stuart Broad

James Anderson James Tredwell

Let us know what you think... @sport_psyched95 do you agree with this? if not what would your XI be?

Lack of ambition and freedom

This one is simple to explain, just look at teams like New Zealand and Australia (very successful ODI team), the main philosophy within these teams is too 'see ball hit ball', thats why thy open up with players like Aaron Finch, Dave Warner, Martin Guptil and of course Brendon McCullum, all of these players have strike rates of above or close to 100. These type of players set the game alight in the first 10 overs and provide a platform for the middle order to consolidate and keep wickets in hand passing it on to the lower order to explode in the last 10 overs. But with England it seems to be a case of lets just bat out the 50 overs, if we dont score a boundary for 15 overs thats fine, wickets are more important. It also seems like they were very content on accepting 5/6 an over during the power plays and 3/4 during the middle overs, this mentality just isn't going to win you world cups. Yes i agree that keeping wickets is important during the middle overs but if the opening batsmen can give the number 3,4,5 ad 6 a good platform it makes their job a lot easier. With special note to Brendon McCullum, he plays with such freedom and class that makes it virtually impossible to set a field or plan to as an opposing skipper, this is something that not one player within the English set up can do, is this because all of them are playing for their place? or is it something thats being feeded down from leadership?

Leadership

In my opinion i don't believe Peter Moores deserved a second chance, most coaches don't normally get a second crack at the 'pinnacle' job within their sports, with exception to the 'special one' Jose Mourinho. But there are younger coaches who have been successful at county level and who deserve to have a shot a the top job in English cricket. People like Jason Gillespie (Yorkshire), Mike Newell (Nottinghamshire) and Mark Robinson (Sussex). All would be accepted by the English cricketing world, although i hope Peter Moores keeps his job as test match coach, however i feel that something needs to changed with regards to limited overs cricket, this isn't just at national level this has to be implemented at grass roots and county level in order for the ECB to see improvements. If i was chief exec of the ECB i'd be looking to bring in a coach with both experience in international cricket, as well as knowledge of the county game, maybe look towards a foreign coach?

It's quite obvious from the evidence provided that drastic changes are needed within the ECB and ODI games, whether anything will be done remians to be seen. But from a spectators point of view this decline in ability to compete with the powerhouses of limited overs cricket has been very dis-heartening.

As usual any suggestions or comments sports_psyched@hotmail.com or give us a follow on twitter @sport_psyched95 #getpsyched

Many thanks