India v England: Players surely care but ruthlessness missing

New balls, please.

After India won the T20 series 4-1, they are 2-0 up in the one-day internationals, sealing that series with successive four-wicket triumphs in Nagpur and Cuttack.

For England, it has been a disappointing start to Brendon McCullum’s reign as white-ball coach, and a disappointing continuation of Jos Buttler’s recent record as captain.

That now stands at four defeats in successive one-day series.

Perhaps he and his men should take up tennis.

The wheels have come off the rickshaw, as it were, during a difficult passage to India thus far.

In addition to problems on the field (in a nutshell, not enough runs with the bat and too many runs conceded with the ball, an unpropitious combination), there have been problems off the field amid suggestions that the players are not sufficiently bothered.

In particular, comments by Ben Duckett, the opening batsman, have caused a stir, with the Nottinghamshire man quoted as saying in advance of the match in Ahmedabad that “if we lose 3-0 to India, I don’t care as long as we beat them in the final of the Champions Trophy”.

It was a clumsy comment, one suspects, rather than a consciously cocky one, but these things tend to acquire a life of their own on tours such as this when the momentum is negative and the spiral downward.

What Duckett surely meant to say - and one did not have the benefit of being at the press conference (thank goodness) - was that England, primarily, have gone to the subcontinent with the aim of winning the Champions Trophy.

That competition kicks off on February 19, with England’s first game against Australia in Lahore on Saturday week.

At present, that aim looks to be on the fanciful side of realistic, with England having been comfortably outclassed in both white-ball formats during this tour.

Tournament sport is a different beast, of course, presenting different challenges and different opponents, but England currently have the air of a wild card entry on the ATP tour about to play Sinner at his most unforgiving.

There has, from this distance anyway, appeared to be no lack of effort from the players (they are professional people, after all) - just a lack of ruthlessness and the winning edge that goes with it.

When they have been competitive on occasions (which they have), when they have established a platform with the bat and had chance to build on it, for example, they have lost their way and surrendered cheap wickets, magnifying the already considerable challenge of playing in that country against, let we forget, some of the sport’s greatest ever players.

The last match in Cuttack was a case in point, the top-six all getting starts but falling between 26 and 69, the sort of scores that do not win games.

There were plenty of good shots among that lot, plenty of innovative thinking and attacking intent, but some soft dismissals at pivotal times; there is a fanciness to England but not enough fortitude.

McCullum, you feel, must lead on such matters.

He has done some fine things with the Test team, no doubt about it, but his insistence going into the tour that he wants the white-ball side to play “a really watchable brand of cricket” almost gives them the excuse to be what might be termed an attractive second-best.

If the Test side needed to be freed-up to really achieve its potential, although it has not all been plain sailing in that format either, the white-ball outfit, if anything, needs reining in and encouraged to be smarter to maximise its skill.

Look down the England top-six and there are some wonderful players there, ones capable of scoring big hundreds in India, not just watchable innings but winning ones, too.

Duckett is right in the sense that the Champions Trophy is where it’s at, to coin a phrase, and it is also true that recent results, if not quite forgotten, will fade quickly into the recesses of memory should England win that competition.

Bilateral cricket, particularly of the white-ball variety, is on the wane in the public perception also, and it might reasonably be wondered how bothered some supporters really are about tours such as this, let alone players – at least those supporters who have forked out to be there (what are they doing?).

Indeed, when Duckett further suggested that “it’s about peaking at the right time”, it hinted, deep down, that England perceive this tour as a glorified warm-up.

If so, and there is no reason to doubt it, the messaging from the top perhaps needs some refinement.