England In T20Is since the T20 World Cup: three series, no wins. Defeat in the decider against West Indies sits alongside a 3-0 defeat in Bangladesh and a 2-2 draw against New Zealand. In ODIs, the World Cup was the only exam that mattered, and England failed it spectacularly. As it happens, England did lose three T20I series in a row after the 2021 T20 World Cup, and then got back on track against Pakistan, also their next opponents. But between now and then they have several decisions to make, not least about whether Matthew Mott, their current head coach, is the right man for the job.

You can try and parse various defeats to look for themes and threads. In the first T20I, they failed to capitalise on a strong opening platform. In the second, they were subject to a middle-overs counterpunch, before failing to arrest a top-order slide themselves. Even in victory in the third, the death bowling was a concern, while in the decider, it was spin that undid them, slipping to an under-par score they did well to almost defend. Facing slow bowling is perhaps the biggest concern, with Akeal Hosein and Gudakesh Motie combining for 11 wickets in the series, averaging 24.9 and conceding 7.61 an over between them.

But England’s machine is creaking at every joint. They have struggled for breakthroughs in the middle overs, for incision with the new ball and to contain at the death. They have been rattled by pace and bamboozled by spin. If there is a defining factor, it’s the spiralling passage, when England go from in the game, to up against it, to out of the equation in minutes. There’s also the lessons quickly unlearned, every step forward followed by another backwards, holes plugged only for another leak to spring. They learned to play out and then hit Motie, but then allowed him to prove decisive in the decider.

Even when the players changed, that entire lack of aura remained. A team who used to be confident of victory hubristically turned up at the World Cup assuming they would be among the frontrunners. They haven’t forgotten how to win completely, but the ability to turn one win into several, or to avert a slide, has disappeared. Increasingly they feel unsure how to set the pace or how to come from behind. “Particularly in T20, sometimes the results are completely out of your control,” says Mott.

Mott has largely insisted England are on the right track. “There are definitely some really good signs there that there’s a group of players who love playing with each other,” he said after the ODI series defeat. “They’re some really good mates in there.” “We really couldn’t have got too many more lessons out of this tour,” was what he told TNT Sports after the T20I reversal.

Occasionally he hints at identification of issues, though after the World Cup he refused to reveal what he had learned, even when pressed. He criticised the schedule, which he felt didn’t allow England enough warm-up time ahead of that competition. This time, he says, “It’s a newish group and it needs to be treated like that,” despite there being perhaps a maximum three guaranteed first-teamers – Ben Stokes, Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood – missing.

It is, of course, easy to poke holes in anything a coach on a losing run says. If things are going wrong, you have two options: emphasise the scale of the issue, even if that means being honest that you have no idea how to fix it, or say that there’s no real issue in the first place. The first option can bring into question whether you’re the right person to turn things around. The latter, if used repeatedly, looks deluded. The only real way out is to start winning.

Mott got his job on the basis of his work with Australia women, where his major success was taking the world’s best side and, after some notable hiccups early on, making them overwhelmingly dominant. It had been assumed that the England role would be similar. But a team that had only needed a tweak or two now requires full-scale transition. They are among the chasing pack, and quickly losing ground. This is unfamiliar territory for Mott. The job he was hired for is no longer the one he has. That should matter.

World Cup: Group phase exit
West Indies ODIs: 2-1 series defeat
West Indies T20Is: 3-2 series defeat

A difficult winter for England in limited overs cricket. pic.twitter.com/pEXcX5i6XL

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) December 22, 2023

In some ways, this is a good time to change coach, even with it being in the run-in to the T20 World Cup. The gap before England’s next engagement affords time to identifying the best replacement. A new-manager bounce could be just what they need, some fresh ideas and a fresh mood.

England don’t play another white-ball game until May, when those four T20Is against Pakistan will serve as all their remaining preparation for their T20 World Cup title defence. England are an international T20 team almost unique in world cricket in having all the bases covered. They have gun openers and explosive finishers, extreme pace and world-class spin bowlers, and all-rounders to spare. Several of these players are good enough not just to get picked up in the IPL, but to have their teams built around them. They should be among the favourites. Instead it feels as if they are sleepwalking towards another failed campaign, slipping from double world champions to no world champions in the space of six months. Increasingly, it feels as if Mott isn’t the man to change that.