Fresh approach urged as England serve up failing formula yet again

England have been accused of showing unfathomable faith in a formula for failure after their humiliating World Cup defeat to Sri Lanka.
DOWNED, BUT NOT OUT: Englands captain Eoin Morgan leads his player's from the field after they lost to Sri Lanka by nine wickets. Picture: AP/Ross Setford.DOWNED, BUT NOT OUT: Englands captain Eoin Morgan leads his player's from the field after they lost to Sri Lanka by nine wickets. Picture: AP/Ross Setford.
DOWNED, BUT NOT OUT: Englands captain Eoin Morgan leads his player's from the field after they lost to Sri Lanka by nine wickets. Picture: AP/Ross Setford.

A third thumping defeat of the tournament, this time by nine wickets in Wellington, plunged England into a deep hole from which they might not escape.

England must win their final two group games against lower-ranked Bangladesh and Afghanistan in the next fortnight or face the unthinkable prospect of going home prematurely.

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The ease with which Sri Lanka chased down England’s 309-6 sent alarm bells ringing far and wide, especially among former players.

Graeme Swann said the team are “living in the past” while former Yorkshire and England batsman Geoffrey Boycott labelled Eoin Morgan’s troops “not a force to be reckoned with at all”.

After drubbings by New Zealand and Australia, the two co-hosts, England at least looked to have put a decent score on the board against Sri Lanka, which was largely down to a career-best ODI score of 121 from Joe Root and some lusty hitting in the closing overs from Jos Buttler.

But tons from Lahiru Thirimanne and Kumar Sangakkara made the job look easy for Sri Lanka.

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Bangladesh are next up for England, on March 9 in Adelaide and former England spinner Swann called on the England and Wales Cricket Board to recognise that its tactical approach belongs to yesteryear.

“I think the problem lies not just with the bowling but the whole approach,” said Swann in a radio interview yesterday.

“It was a very self-congratulatory 310, everyone was saying ‘brilliant’. These days that’s about average and not a great score.”

Swann feels the answer to England’s batting problems could lie with a former Nottinghamshire team-mate.

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“We have a lad in Alex Hales, one of these new generation players who does go out and knock it about, he tries to smash everything for four and six,” said Swann.

“We need to get these young lads playing. We have too many people running it, too many people involved, too many plans and I think we’re just living in the past.”

Former England captain and Yorkshire batsman Michael Vaughan added on Twitter: “We are watching a era of Cricket where if you are predictable you will end up with a predictable outcome.”

Boycott said the England team were not being realistic when the problems were clear to most observers.

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He said: “We are not a force to be reckoned with at all. The batting was quite good, but the bowling? No, no, sorry. It wasn’t very challenging.

“The sad thing for me, even Joe Root, (he gave) a nice interview, lovely lad, but there’s no realism. They keep telling us ‘we’ll take the positives, we did well, we did this’. They are trying to tell us little things and we don’t see them. They think ex-players like us are just watching to criticise, we’re not, we want you to win. But we can only tell you what we see and you keep losing.”

England’s beleagured captain Morgan admitted the defeat was a concern, but backed his players to bounce back and make it through to the last eight.

“Losing any game is always a concern,” added Morgan.

“Over the next few days, we’ll have them off, and then we’ll reconvene.

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“Me and Mooresy (head coach Peter Moores) will have a sit down along with the backroom staff and debrief the game and see where we’ve gone wrong and how we can get better.”

England’s players now have an eight-day gap to stew over their latest defeat before they meet Bangladesh at the Adelaide Oval.

“It’s not a big deal getting those guys up,” he said.

“It’s a World Cup everybody is like a kid at Christmas, they want to play and they want to win. That part of it is easy.

“It’s simple things moving forward. I keep banging on about them because we haven’t done them so far this World Cup.

“The simpler we keep it moving forward, the more obvious what we do or have to do over the next 10 days.

Weekend scorecards: Page 11.