England tipped to make historic World Cup double

The former Ashes winner, who is now part of Scarborough College’s cricket coaching staff, is confident that they can follow their victory in the 50-over World Cup last year with the T20 World Cup in India next winter.

England continue their countdown to that competition with a three-match T20 series in South Africa that starts on Friday.

Onions feels that they have a talent pool capable of covering all bases as they bid to become the first team to hold the 50-over and 20-over World Cups simultaneously.

Asked whether England have a good chance of winning the T20 crown, Onions told The Yorkshire Post: “Yeah, massively. I really believe so. India will still probably go into that tournament as favourites, just obviously with it being on their home patch and stuff like that.

“But I do believe that England have got a fantastic chance. They’ve got some absolute world-beaters in their team who, on their day, can change any game.”

Such is England’s strength that Yorkshire’s Joe Root is not even in their 15-man squad for the South Africa series.

The England Test captain was only named in the one-day squad for the three games that follow the T20 matches.

Root had pressed his claims with four fifties in five innings for Yorkshire in last summer’s T20 Blast, including a classy 64 at Old Trafford against Lancashire, for whom Onions had played since 2018 following a long and illustrious career with Durham.

Onions, 38, announced his retirement two weeks before that Roses fixture due to a back injury, but he was hugely impressed with Root’s performance in that game which highlighted England’s T20 resources.

“Joe is a phenomenal player,” he said. “He got a fifty in that Roses match against us and got run out, but you looked at that innings and you just thought, ‘Wow, what a player.’ Honestly, what a fantastic player Joe Root is.

“I was actually reading an article the other day with Sam Billings, who was saying that it’s just so hard to get into this England team, which pretty much sums it up really.”

England will return to the top of the T20 world rankings if they whitewash South Africa in the games in Cape Town on Friday and Tuesday which sandwich Sunday’s match in Paarl.

They are unrecognisable from the side that hit rock-bottom at the 50-over World Cup in 2015 before captain Eoin Morgan and former coach Trevor Bayliss dragged them up by their bootstraps.

“The work that the coaches and Eoin Morgan put in to basically transform England’s white-ball side is incredible,” said Onions, who played four one-day internationals in 2009 to go with nine Test appearances between 2009-2012.

“The ball-strikers that they’ve got now… it’s just incredible, it really is. Every single player can hit the ball out of the park.

“They’ve got the bowling covered, they’ve got a fantastic leggie, they’ve got an off-spinner in there as well, they’ve got a genuine, world-class all-rounder. England are just a fantastic team.”

Nor is Onions’s admiration confined to their white-ball efforts.

Under Root and head coach Chris Silverwood, the former Yorkshire pace bowler, England are evolving in Test cricket too.

“To be honest, I believe that the Test match side is a very good team as well,” said Onions, who captured 32 Test wickets at 29.90, including 10 wickets in his three appearances in the Ashes-winning series of 2009.

“A lot of guys are at the right age now to go forward and dominate world cricket really. They’re at a good time in their lives, in their careers.

“I think the crop of young fast bowlers and the batters now are exciting. Going forwards towards the Ashes and all the World Cups, it’s going to be exciting, it’s going to be great.”

Onions’s positivity is echoed within the England camp in South Africa, with batsman Jason Roy insisting that they have a “frightening” amount of T20 depth.

“It’s mad, the amount of batters is quite frightening for our top-six or top-seven,” said Roy. “It’s a great position to be in.

“I’m not fussed who I open with, whether I open, what goes on, or what dynamics they go with, but it’s a good position leading into a World Cup.

“Sam Billings touched on it the other day about it being one of the hardest sports teams to infiltrate. The amount of players – and Tom Banton and Tom Helm sitting here as reserves... we’re spoilt for choice.”

Roy said that there was “a similar feel” to the T20 team in the build-up to the World Cup as there was in the lead-up to the 50-over tournament.

“We have got a good foundation, we talk a lot about how we go about it, formulas, game scenarios, and I think it has got quite a similar feel,” he said.

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