England suffered yet another humiliating defeat in the 2023 World Cup in Lucknow, their fourth in consecutive matches. Their decision-making and selection continue to show a clouded thought process, writes Katya Witney.

England’s World Cup title defence is as good as over, and has been in reality since their loss to South Africa. For the game that came after that, against Sri Lanka, Jos Buttler made two non-enforced changes to his starting XI, an admittance that their balance had been horrifically skewed in the match that preceded it.

Those changes were to drop Harry Brook and Gus Atkinson, for Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone – the two lower-order all-rounders giving the side a more familiar feel than when David Willey came in at No.7. But, when England were bowled out for 156 with Livingstone returning a single run off his six balls and Moeen a run a ball 15, Buttler and Matthew Mott were once again left scratching their heads.

The all-rounder plan hadn’t worked, and the loss to Sri Lanka left the nails in place and waiting to be hammered into the coffin lid. After the match, Mott said that the team would try to “salvage some really good stuff out of the back end of this, but realistically we’re in a lot of trouble.”

Apart from the pride of not being torn to pieces by the Netherlands, Australia and Pakistan, there really is very little left to salvage. A group of players, most of whom are playing their last round of ODIs, taking away a couple of consolation victories from a car crash of a tournament isn’t much to inspire. A better use of their time would be to bed in the two players in their squad earmarked to be the future core of the side.

Brook’s non-selection against Sri Lanka allowed England to get the all-rounders they wanted into the XI, but realistically weakened their batting. Before the game against India, Livingstone’s top score across five innings in the tournament was 20. Moeen had once again been jettisoned in a World Cup, this time after the first game against New Zealand in which he scored 11 and went wicketless.

England were crying out for another bowling option against South Africa, but forcing Livingstone and Moeen into the same team at the expense of Brook not only makes their batting lineup even more volatile, but doesn’t provide the reward they’re searching for with the ball. Against Sri Lanka, once they’d been bowled out for 156 it didn’t matter what they did with the ball.

But against India, having understandably wanted more spin options on a turning track, Livingstone was expensive while Moeen rattled through his overs for no reward. Their most violent batting capitulation in the tournament to date followed.

The pre-tournament calls for Brook to be included in England’s World Cup squad despite his lack of experience shows the talent he possesses and the impact he’s already had in his short international career. That he was then chosen over Jason Roy days before the squad flew out was a remarkable overthrow of one of the 2019 big guns. The three-year contract he was awarded last week is also evidence of the central role England see him playing in their long-term plans. Yet, he sat on the sidelines in a yellow bib in Lucknow watching one of the oldest ODI XIs there has ever been disintegrate.

Not only has Brook been one of England’s ‘better’ batters in the tournament, averaging 32 with 128 runs across four innings, but he could well be the only member of that batting lineup still playing the format when this horror show eventually comes to an end. Livingstone is 30 and averages 30.87 in ODIs without a single hundred. Moeen is the oldest member of England’s squad, and his place in England’s best ODI XI is never far from question.

It doesn’t have to be about Moeen and Livingstone only, any number of England’s batters based on their performances in the last four games could drop out of the side. There’s also nothing now to lose in blooding the other young guns in the squad, Atkinson and Brydon Carse. Atkinson showed himself more than capable against South Africa and was arguably their seamer with the most control. Flying Carse out to India for a front-row seat to the end of a demolition job also seems counterproductive.

There are so many things England could’ve and possibly should’ve done differently in the tournament. But none of that matters now. What matters is how they rebuild and, in the words of Matthew Mott, ‘what they can salvage.’ They won’t salvage anything if they don’t try and learn anything.

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