Ahead of the match against Sri Lanka, England captain Harry Brook had insisted his team needed to ramp up batting strike rates. “I want us to go hell for leather in 20 overs,” he’d said, after spending several days talking about England “being too careful” with the bat, him included.
Nothing has defined the ambitions of England cricket in the last 10 or so years more than this relentless attempt to launch batting strike rates into the stratosphere. They’ve built two triumphant World Cup campaigns and and entire Bazball manifesto around it, and even if Bazball is on the wane you better keep those strike rates high fellas. To think about modern England cricket minus the need to thump the ever-living daylights out of as many balls as possible is like considering the Soviet Union minus communism or Genghis Khan minus the pillaging. This is kind of their entire thing.
Except, hang on. Something unplanned-for is happening in this World Cup campaign. Although they’ve now played more matches than most, England have exactly zero batters in the tournament’s top-10 run-scorers. They are now ninth on overall batting strike rate in the tournament.
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Plus their captain says things like, “I’d much rather be caught on the boundary rather than [caught and bowled by a spinner]” and then 10 days later strides out with purpose, marks his guard like he’s about to crack into another of his famed game-turning innings, hits one boundary, is out leg-before later in the over trying to nudge the spinner to leg, and still ends up on the the side that wins by 51 runs against the co-hosts.
The win comes after England’s own batters go at no more than 7.30 an over in their innings, in a match where only one of their batters has hit a half-century. And in a tournament in which none of their bowlers are among the top 10 wicket-takers. And yet now, with India also having lost their first Super Eights match, England feel like pretty serious contenders.
No one will argue England’s campaign so far has been great. Just like no one will argue that England’s best performer on Sunday, Will Jacks, is not necessarily great. But Jacks has struck 21 off 14, and taken 3 for 22 in the same match, which is not nothing. And England claimed the first win of the Super Eights stage of this World Cup, which is more than can be said for India – the favourites. And that is also not nothing. “Not nothing” is not such a bad place to be. Famous tournament wins have been built on “not nothing”. And England are all over that in this competition.
Chief of the not-nothingers is Jacks, who puts a lot of overspin on the ball, fields athletically, adds some tenacity with the bat, and is the kind of bits-and-pieces cricketer that is maligned when tournaments go badly, but celebrated when their contributions come through in crucial times.
Jacks wasn’t necessarily going to bowl three overs in the powerplay in this match. In fact, Brook said it was the larger boundary on one side of the ground that prompted the England thinktank to pick the offspin of Jacks over the left-arm spin of Liam Dawson for the early overs.
And then this Jacks guy trots in, concedes only four in his first over, gets on a hat-trick in his next, picks up another wicket in his third unchanged powerplay over, and has figures of 3 for 14 by the end of the sixth.
This is after the man has struck four fours, every one through the covers, in a 14-ball 21. He bats at No. 7, hits a 53 not out without which England might have lost against Italy, and now happens to be second-highest run-getter for the team. To rub salt into anti-bits-and-pieces-cricketer wounds, he also makes a fantastic grab on the deep midwicket boundary when he is about to run over the rope, then backhands it to another fielder who completes the catch.
No one planned for any this to happen. And yet this is what is happening. Brook also said that given the surface, a par score would have been something like 165.
Will Jacks scored 21 odd 14 balls Sameera Peiris / © ICC via Getty Images
English cricket plots its next five years, thinks of brand value, markets itself efficiently, commands a substantial slice of the global cricket economy, and yet its team is just lurching from match to match at this World Cup, and somehow it is winning, on surfaces that even in India have not been as batter-friendly as hoped. Perhaps your intention is to custom-build a Bugatti that you can really open up on the autobahn. But sometimes what you get is a trishaw and a potholed backroad with some rando spinner-lower-order-batter in charge of the whole thing.
Ride this bad boy, England. Ride it down the hill, with little more to hold the entire machination together than fishing line and hope. With India having lost one now, the tournament feels wide open, and the more cricketing strength you put into these Super Eights and the knockouts to follow, the more this tournament might slip into all-time entertainment territory. Shoot around the corners, veer on two wheels, tumble down into a ravine and find yourself righted at the bottom. Plans B and C can also be joyful. Any team can adapt.
And any team, vitally, can break away from a brand, and in the heat of competition, find new modes and new heroes. This England need not be big-hitting, so long as they are in Sri Lanka, at least. All they must do is keep winning.