Cameron Ponsonby reviews a defeat that leaves England needing to be perfect in order to avoid early elimination from the World Cup.
In 2011, Nigel Pargetter, a character in the English radio drama The Archers, fell from the roof of his home and died.
His death yodel, that lasted from the moment he slipped until the moment he hit the ground, was recorded at 3.5 seconds long. Meaning, according to the laws of physics, the roof of Nigel Pargetter’s house was 60 metres high.
England spent a long time falling today. The first screams of terror arriving as Ireland’s openers got off to a flier, continuing as captain Jos Buttler fell second ball, intensifying as they slipped 29-3 in the powerplay, before finally coming to an end with a dull thud, as the Melbourne rain brought an end to proceedings with Ireland five runs ahead on DLS. England’s destiny is still in their own hands, but they have got themselves in a pickle.
We’re dead. We’re dead. We survived, but we’re dead.
Speaking after the game, Jos Buttler laid the blame at the door of England’s first 10 overs in the field as the reason for their defeat. Their lines were wayward and their standards below what they should be. The second ten overs were better from an English point of view, but the strong start meant that Ireland finished on a middle-of-the-road 157. Nigel and Ireland. The Pargetters.
But even then England continued to fall. Buttler was gone in the first over, Alex Hales the third and Ben Stokes the sixth. An episode of The Crown gone wrong, with each and every member of English royalty dying tamely one after the other.
“I think we should let it hurt, to be honest”, said Buttler. “Days like today are really, really disappointing and you’ve got to feel that. There’s no point saying ‘let’s sweep it under the carpet and move on’, we’ve got to reflect and do it very quickly. Today should hurt.”
At no point were England ahead in this game. And the biggest concern within that statement is that everything was in England’s favour across the course of the match.
In the knowledge that rain was around, they won a crucial toss that allowed them to bat second so they’d know exactly where they needed to be in their chase and when. But that didn’t help them. In the first innings, when Ireland’s Andrew Balbirnie and Lorcan Tucker were putting together a dangerous partnership, Tucker was run out at the non-strikers off the tips of Adil Rashid’s fingers. And when England started chipping catches up to Ireland in the field, they were put down. England had every opportunity to catch themselves in their fall, only to keep on tumbling.
Of further concern to England was their failure to manage what they could have with the weather. Both Harry Brook and Dawid Malan faced 58 balls between them for just 53 runs, and with England aware that the rain may bring the game to an early halt, it was a waste to only have Moeen Ali and Liam Livingstone, two of the sides’ most powerful hitters only in at the end and facing 14 balls between them. Moeen finished unbeaten on 24 off 12 and Livingstone was only allowed the time to face two balls.
“We didn’t react to situations that didn’t show a good enough reaction at times,” said Buttler. “I guess the benefit of hindsight and when the weather did come, to have the two guys in, those guys only faced fourteen balls in a game.
“Obviously you’re hoping the game goes all the way and they will hopefully see you home, but it feels now… two guys with immense power and finishing ability. Is there a way we could have got them more involved in the game if we knew maybe the game would be shorter?”
If not quite an admission, it brings into light whether England feel they’re relying on their ‘anchors’ too much in the shape of Malan and even Ben Stokes when they have so much power-hitting in the XI back-loaded all the way down the order with Sam Curran and Chris Woakes batting at eight and nine respectively.
It is unlikely that England will make a change to their batting ahead of Australia on Friday, but after two games in this tournament their run-rate sits below seven-an-over, and a shock defeat here means they’ve allowed themselves no room for further error.
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