Five years after being crowned world champions, England are playing like one-day novices. There is a simple reason for that. They are novices. A country that revolutionised the global game with its no limits attitude has been complicit in making the 50-over game off limits to its leading players with dire consequences.
If England are not already in crisis, be warned because they are on its threshold. A glance at the ICC’s rankings, following another series defeat in the Caribbean, is enough to tell you that. They sit seventh, with Afghanistan, Bangladesh and West Indies breathing down their necks.
Bunkem to the standings, you say. They don’t carry weight. Only that they do for those on losing streaks like the 13 in 20 matches that England are on. With automatic qualification for the next World Cup only the gift of the top eight teams – excluding hosts South Africa and Zimbabwe – as of the end of 2026, they are on precarious ground. The next two placed teams face the ignominy of entering a qualifying tournament that would further clog a saturated schedule.
West Indies know only too well the jeopardy playing against associate and lesser Test nations brings, having failed to make it to the main event in 2023.
And even though England should have multi-format stars like Ben Stokes, Joe Root, Harry Brook and Mark Wood back in addition to Jos Buttler, who missed this 2-1 defeat to the West Indians through injury, they might have been knocked down a peg or two further by the end of their next 50-over assignment – a three-match series in India in the new year.
England’s one-day side is in crisis and could fail to qualify for the next World Cup
West Indies triumphed over England to claim a sensational series victory, winning 2-1 overall
Losing a disappointing 13 of their last 20 matches, England sit seventh in the ICC’s world rankings, with Afghanistan, Bangladesh and West Indies breathing down their necks
So, how has it come to this? The answer, as so often with these things, is multitudinous, but ultimately stems from a neglect of the traditional overs format by English administrators, who took a gamble that due to the mushrooming of Twenty20 around the globe, their glory-gilded hosting of the World Cup in 2019 would be the penultimate in the competition’s history.
They misread the tea leaves. While phasing out the old for the new made sense from an Anglo perspective, as they looked to launch their flagship Hundred competition, it did not take into account the fact that one-day cricket remained strong in Asia – the length of matches allowing for twice as many adverts in a vibrant television market – or that the 50-over format is viewed by the ICC as the vehicle to bridge the gap in quality between established and emerging nations.
The return of the Champions Trophy next February after an eight-year hiatus, and pencilling in for 2029 too, is another sign of its staying power.
So, if England are going to be competitive in major tournaments, let alone win them, they need to change the structure of their season.
Phil Salt’s words earlier this week, when he said he’d like there to be a 50-over tournament in England felt like a cry for help. It was a Freudian slip, of course. There is one. But because of its scheduling, concurrent with the Hundred, it doesn’t feature those deemed to be the best 100 Twenty20 cricketers in the country. Ergo, the majority of the best white-ball players.
‘I’m not going to say against any other competition but of course we want more 50-over cricket somehow. How we do that, that’s not up to me to try to work out,’ said acting coach Marcus Trescothick, after England’s young team’s lack of nous was exposed.
‘We know how important Test cricket is in England and the domestic T20 competition and Hundred competitions we’ve got are vitally important to our game. For the powers above to try and balance that structure, and get that right, is something for them to look at but it’s not going to be easy.’
When it was positioned alongside the Hundred, ECB referred to the Metro Bank Cup as a development competition. However, the best youngsters bypass it, meaning they are learning on the job in internationals.
They should have multi-format stars like Ben Stokes (left) and Joe Root (right) back next year
England head to the subcontinent in February to take on India in three one-day internationals
The England XI that featured in the World Cup final in 2019 averaged 100 caps apiece; combined, they’d played 1966 one-day games. For the XI that started this series, those numbers read: 24 and 628.
For a while it was argued that the tempo of 50-over cricket was not so far removed from Twenty20. True enough for Eoin Morgan’s experienced, golden generation that re-scripted scoring rates through regular appearances and continuity of selection. Not so for a greenhorn group trying to develop a rhythm on an unknown beat.
With England’s annual fixture list already beyond breaking point, something has to give, but you can bet your bottom dollar it won’t be financially lucrative five-match series against Australia and India.
So, if the policy of blooding fresh talent on white-ball tours overlapping with Test assignments is to continue, at least give them a fighting chance of succeeding.
