{"id":292672,"date":"2023-10-06T19:45:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-06T19:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/?p=292672"},"modified":"2023-10-06T19:45:37","modified_gmt":"2023-10-06T19:45:37","slug":"five-areas-england-must-improve-to-get-back-on-track-at-the-world-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportslifetale.com\/%d1%81ricket\/five-areas-england-must-improve-to-get-back-on-track-at-the-world-cup\/","title":{"rendered":"Five areas England must improve to get back on track at the World Cup"},"content":{"rendered":"
After their humiliating nine-wicket defeat by New Zealand on the opening day of the World Cup in Ahmedabad, England cannot afford another stumble against Bangladesh in Dharamshala on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here, Mail Sport’s Lawrence Booth sets out the five areas where they need to improve.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jonny Bairstow provided a turbocharged start by taking 12 off Trent Boult\u2019s first over, but England slowed down so much that only 39 came off the next nine: a sluggish 51 for one in the powerplay was put into context by New Zealand\u2019s 81 for one at the same stage.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Dawid Malan deserves his place at the top of the order after a strong ODI series against the New Zealanders at home last month, but his 24-ball 14 \u2014 including 16 dots \u2014 deprived England of early momentum.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Dawid Malan’s sluggish start against New Zealand put pressure on\u00a0Jonny Bairstow<\/p>\n
And that put pressure on Bairstow, who lost the strike and his rhythm.<\/p>\n
There were flickers of adventure about England\u2019s batting: Joe Root\u2019s reverse-ramp for six off Boult, Harry Brook\u2019s 14 off three balls against Rachin Ravindra, and a pair of straight sixes by Jos Buttler.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the victorious 2019 team did this as a matter of course.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And there was something unusually tentative about the dismissals of Bairstow, chipping to long-off, and Buttler, nibbling behind. It\u2019s more than three years since England batted out 50 overs for a lower score than their 282 for nine.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Buttler promised they would attack their way to another World Cup succcess. That message seemed lost on Thursday.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s every chance Stokes will miss the Bangladesh game too after suffering soreness in his left hip, though England will know more on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But they played against New Zealand as if diminished by his absence.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Other players will have to fill the void if Ben Stokes (above) fails to recover from injury<\/p>\n
As Mark Wood put it: \u2018He\u2019s not Superman. He\u2019s obviously one of our best players, if not our best player, but all the lads have to stand up as well. It\u2019s not all just about the Messiah Stokesy coming back and him doing everything.\u2019\u00a0<\/p>\n
If Stokes fails to recover in time for Tuesday, others will have to impose themselves on Bangladesh instead and help England get back on track.<\/p>\n
The decision not to pick Reece Topley felt wrong when it was announced, and only got worse as Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra destroyed England\u2019s bowlers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Topley has had rotten luck with injuries but he\u2019s raring to go \u2014 and England need his height and left-arm angle.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Against New Zealand at the Ageas Bowl and The Oval recently, his five wickets included Ravindra and Conway for single figures.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The overthinking extended to promoting Moeen Ali to No 5 ahead of Buttler in a bid to keep a left\/right-hand combination.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Ali has batted there only three times in his nine-year ODI career. Why experiment in the first game of a World Cup?<\/p>\n
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Joe Root called for calm as England bounced back to lift the trophy in 2019 and 2022<\/p>\n
There was a sense far too early in the brilliant partnership between Conway and Ravindra that England were powerless to do anything to stop them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the message conveyed after the game by Root, urging calm, was exactly right.\u00a0<\/p>\n
England stumbled during the 2019 World Cup, losing group games to Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia. And they went down to Ireland during the 2022 T20 tournament. But they ended up winning both.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u2018A great trait of the group is that resilience and bouncing back and calmness,\u2019 said Wood. \u2018I trust every member in there: they\u2019ve been through good and bad times. We know we can do it.\u2019<\/p>\n