England's lack of 50-over experience makes them historical and international outliers

Brendon McCullum’s first white-ball tour in charge of the side was a significant eye-opener into exactly what England lack as a one-day outfit. In contrast to when McCullum took control of the Test side, when a new, leadership set-up was enough to kick-start a turnaround in results, it was obvious in India that no amount of McCullum dynamism alone could make up for what his charges are missing.

Specifically, the skills gap between England and the top tier of ODI sides was marked by failing to bat their overs in all three matches. It’s a pattern that fits in with their post-2023 World Cup performance, during which time they have been bowled out in eight of the 14 matches they’ve played - only Zimbabwe have been bowled out more times in that timeframe. While they also score their runs quicker than any other side, of the teams who will compete in the Champions Trophy, no one has a worse win-loss ratio. Quite simply, England’s gameplan to score runs quickly, isn’t working.

Speaking on the Wisden Cricket Weekly podcast during the series in India, Mark Butcher pinpointed a major reason behind the difficulties England have had in nailing an ODI innings. "The first thing that sprung to my mind during the first two ODIs was just how naive most of our cricket is in the 50-over format," said Butcher. "I thought 'why might that be?' It's because we don't play any.

“There is a world of difference in terms of the tempo that the game needs to continuously be played at… Having that skill and nous and game awareness to know when to put the foot down and when to ease off a little but, when to sit in and when to go hard, is something that only comes with playing lots of it.”

🗣️ "It's not likely that our team and the relative experience of it is going to have the skill and the nous to win what is a very difficult form of cricket."@markbutcher72 on England's ODI struggles ahead of the Champions Trophy 📉

🤝 @MenofManual #INDvENG pic.twitter.com/FFm1uIGktH

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) February 13, 2025

The crowded international calendar, where ODIs and T20Is oscillate in order of priority depending on which ICC tournament is closest on the horizon, means less time for teams to establish their approach particularly in 50-over cricket. Between the 2015 and 2019 World Cups, England’s most capped ODI player in that period - Adil Rashid - played 84 matches. In the next cycle, leading up to the 2023 competition, their most capped player - Jason Roy - played 39.

While players compete in T20s around the world month on month, building their short format skills as they go, 50-over cricket is an afterthought. In England, prioritisation of The Hundred means, for the best white-ball prospects, the List A part of the season effectively doesn’t exist. It’s only now that the true effect of that at an international level is starting to filter through.

How much less 50-over cricket do England cricketers play than they used to?

Quite simply, the answer to the above question is a lot. England’s most recent ODI debutant, Jordan Cox, has never played a List A game in a domestic competition. His 50-over experience before making his international debut in the format was limited to a one-off warm-up game for Kent against Pakistan in 2019, and three Lions games in Sri Lanka more than a year before his England call-up.

Cox is the rule not the exception. A combination of the Covid pandemic and The Hundred has meant that England’s current and next generation of 50-over players are the least experienced they’ve ever been at the point of making their ODI debuts. Before Will Jacks made his debut in 2023, he hadn’t played a game of 50-over cricket in four years. It’s a similar story for Dan Mousley (three years), Brydon Carse (two years), and Gus Atkinson, who had played just two List A games over two years before his debut.

The reason for the vast gaps between List A games and England ODI debut is largely The Hundred. With the One Day Cup now played alongside The Hundred, England’s most promising white-ball players will play one or two seasons in the ODC before being snapped up by a franchise for that part of the season. Jamie Overton has been signed in every edition of The Hundred and thus hasn’t played a domestic List A game since 2019. Mousley was picked as a wildcard in the 2022 Hundred, so hasn’t played in the ODC since 2021, and has in fact played more 50-over cricket during a spell in Sri Lankan domestic cricket than he has in England.

When compared to previous generations of England ODI players, especially their best, this is a dramatic evolution. Of England’s most capped players between 2019 and 2023, every single player had at least 30 50-over caps before their ODI debut, and had played a List A game within the previous year.

To highlight the starkest contrast in England’s 50-over experience drop off - on average, England’s five most-capped players in the cycle before the 2019 World Cup win had played more than 50 List A matches before their debut. Going back even further to the generation before, the most capped players in the cycle between the 2007 and 2011 World Cup had played on average more than 60 List A games before their debut. Of England’s five most recent debutants, that figure is less than 18.

How much less List A cricket do England now play than the rest of the World?

England’s younger generation weren’t the only ones to struggle in India, their most senior players also finding the right tempo hard to strike.

"I remember back in the 90s when England would play three Texaco Trophy matches during the course of the summer, the sum total of England's 50-over cricket would be three to six matches per summer,” Butcher said. “They'd be playing against India sides, or West Indies sides or Australia sides, the difference in number of caps between them and our players was three times more on the other team. We're kind of back in that situation now whereby the India players will out number the number of caps of even someone like Jos Buttler for example, by at least two to one or three to one."

It’s true, particularly among multi-format players, that the international calendar allows little 50-over continuity. Take England’s white-ball series in the West Indies before they went to India, which was sandwiched in between two Test series’ with barely a week of leeway combined at both ends. This means that senior players are playing far fewer ODI matches than they used to, in combination with fewer matches scheduled in the format overall. Constantly expecting the likes of Root and Ben Stokes to parachute into white-ball sides when a major tournament demands is similarly difficult to asking less experienced players like Harry Brook and Jacob Bethell to do the same.

Rehan Ahmed - Selected in T20I squad.
Joe Root - Selected in ODI squad.

England have announced their squads for the upcoming white-ball series against India.

Read here ➡️ https://t.co/uTrQ8uNXqz pic.twitter.com/ASM6la67Mi

— Wisden (@WisdenCricket) December 22, 2024

However, this is a difficulty almost every side in the world is facing, and is particularly evident among England, India and Australia, as sides who play the most Test matches. In reality, the cap difference between England’s top brass and the four teams who reached the 2023 World Cup semi-finals isn’t vast.

Three of England’s most capped ODI players since the 2019 World Cup (Jos Buttler, Joe Root and Adil Rashid) have over 200 List A caps - none of South Africa, New Zealand, Australia or India have as many players with 200+ caps. England are second only to India in terms of the average number of List A caps their most capped ODI players in that timeframe have.

But it’s again the experience gap of the generation coming through which is more telling. It’s a given that players across the world largely do not play as much 50-over cricket before making their ODI debuts as they have done previously. However, the drop off for England is the most extreme.

On average, England’s last four ODI debutants who were under 30 years old at the time of their debut (Cox, Mousley, Turner and Jacob Bethell) had less than 12 List A caps before their first ODI. That’s less than a third of the total List A caps of India’s most recent four ODI debutants aged under 30, and significantly less than New Zealand, South Africa, and Australia.

Even among 50-over cricket’s diminishing status world-wide, it’s clear that England are the outliers. While it’s not the only factor behind their dwindling success in the format compared to their peak, it’s a significant explanatory component.

The decision to demote the One Day Cup and prioritise player availability for The Hundred during a cramped domestic summer is salient to this. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of that decision, how that experience gap is made up, or if it is made up, is where England’s future success in the format must be built.

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