How much does our annihilation in the India one-day series matter?
In some ways, quite a lot. Our year of hitherto unalloyed glory and excellence – the Ashes, the India test whitewash – has ended on a very sour and disappointing note. It’s not as if we were edged out 3-2. The actual scoreline – 5-0 – has a very ugly look to it.
In four of the five matches, we were simply hammered, despite often getting into good positions. The middle-order continually imploded under pressure, and the bowlers struggled to exert any sustained authority. Few players – with the possible exception of Samit Patel – return home with their reputations enhanced, while the new faces achieved nothing more than a stamp in their passports and a dent in their confidence.
We’ve opened ourselves up to some obvious charges – that England can strut about at home only to look like complete amateurs as soon as we step foot in Asia. And that our recent success is a mere mirage – a fortuitous cashing-in on opponents’ temporary instability.
Meanwhile, the past two weeks will have done little for Alastair Cook’s self-esteem. His first significant captaincy challenge ended in total disaster. No one wants to see him diverted by the setbacks to the ODI team – and efforts to make amends- from his real job of scoring test runs.
But having said all of this – I’m personally tempted to conclude that the last fortnight doesn’t actually matter at all. In six months’, or a year’s time, who in England (apart from India fans) will remember this series? Who’s even very conscious of it at the moment, apart from diehards like us?
Have you heard anyone talking about it at work, or down the pub, or even much about it on the news? Even genuine cricket followers have been far more interested in the rugby world cup or the Manchester football derby.
Non-English cynics might say that the apathy is due to the results. I suspect not. If we’d won 5-0, I still doubt anyone would have noticed.
This is partly because of the time of year – mid-October, just when the football season is hotting up, is an odd time for England to be playing cricket. But the main reason can be explained in three letters: ODI.
Rightly or wrongly, the 50 over format just doesn’t get English juices flowing. It feels alien, throwaway, too predictable, and wholly lacking in emotional or historical context.
The irony of ODIs is that they’re supposed to help attract newcomers and casual supporters to the game. However, the opposite is true. Think about friends of yours with little or no interest in cricket. They will know about the Ashes and are probably aware of the India tests this summer – but there is no chance they could name you a single ODI series they have ever heard of.
England supporters know that whatever happened in India just now, we weren’t even playing our proper team. Bring back Tremlett, Broad, Strauss, Anderson, Prior and Bell, change the colour of the ball, extend the match to five days – and then we’ll demonstrate what we can actually do.
The downside is that 50 over cricket is important everywhere else. We are out of step, with our heads in the sand – and being both snobbish and arrogant. The consequence of our national attitude can be seen in the outcome of every ODI world cup.
But it’s not going to change, so the sooner the ECB stop packing the fixture schedule with superfluous 50 over series, at the expense of proper test series, the better for both supporters and players.
Maxie Allen
And of course we don’t play 50 over cricket in our domestic cricket, so how are we supposed to get better at them? Our defeat is nothing to get upset about because we’ve never been able to manipulate spin on the subcontinent – just like raina, yuvraj etc are utterly exposed against the short ball in England (the test series showed ample evidence of that). It has always been thus. To call us arrogant for not caring about ODIs is well off the mark though. We take interest in the world cup. We don’t care about most ODIs because there are far far too many of them; and there is never a meaningful trophy up for grabs like the ashes. It’s total overkill – arranged by greedy cricket boards. Remember, even the Eden gardens match was played in front of a sparse crowd. Even the Indian public couldnt be bothered to watch in the end!
I think you are wrong about Cook. He may have a dent in his confidence but he would have learnt more from this than any easy win series. It will make him a better skipper in the long run.