A considered take on England v Afghanistan

Was it as big a shock as most people think?

Several days after England’s crushing 69-run defeat to Afghanistan at the cricket World Cup, the knee-jerk takes on the loss have been plentiful. So, in attempt to be a little bit more considered, here is my take on the loss.

First of all, people in the media and on social media appear to be comparing England’s loss to defeats against the likes of the Netherlands and Ireland. Despite the Netherlands shock victory over South Africa in their last match, the strength of those XIs in the past (and Netherlands now) are incomparable to Afghanistan.

With Rahmanullah Gurbaz, Rashid Khan, Mujeeb, Naveen-ul Haq and Fazalhaq Farooqi in their team, plus the vastly experienced Mohammad Nabi, Afghanistan have players of franchise league quality, and much better than that - IPL quality. Gurbaz, Rashid, Mujeeb, Naveen and Farooqi are all aged well in advance of peak age and should only get better. They would easily get into Blast teams as overseas players currently, and the Afghanistan bowling attack is easily comparable to England’s in my view, if not even better.

So, why is it such a huge shock that Afghanistan, on their day, are capable of challenging England? People point to them winning one match in the World Cup in 18 attempts, but their team now is far better than when they first started. If they could find another couple of batters to take the heavy lifting away from Gurbaz, they’d be very capable of qualifying for knockout stages of these major events.

People have intimated that England underestimated Afghanistan, but I can’t believe that the players would - Naveen has torn up the Blast for several seasons, Rashid Khan for longer and Gurbaz, Mujeeb and Farooqi are fixtures in various franchise leagues which England players also play in - they should be acutely aware of their qualities.

Where I think they went wrong, and this may have been a form of underestimation in itself is the toss decision - did England decide to chase simply because it’s what they prefer? Afghanistan are a bowling-heavy team, and as we saw against New Zealand earlier today, their batting is mostly Gurbaz-or-bust.

So, it makes complete sense to put pressure on Afghanistan’s weaker suit, not their stronger suit, and this is what I would have advised England - if England had posted a mediocre score of, say, 250-280 batting first, I don’t think Afghanistan would have been likely to get close. It is, of course, possible for England’s analysts to have also mentioned the same thing, but weren’t listened to - and this is possibly one of the biggest mistakes fans of cricket teams make, thinking that a strategic error is the analysts fault. Analysts aren’t often the ones making the final decision!

Another mistake England could be critiqued for is their failure to bowl more spin when it was obvious it was pretty effective. Afghanistan had two LHBs at 4&6 (Shahidi and Ali Khil) but Root only bowled four overs for what were many overs of good match-ups for him (he took the wicket of Shahidi but didn’t bowl a great deal to Ali Khil, whose 58(66) was a major part of Afghanistan posting a competitive 285.

An area which also concerns me a little with England is innings construction - it seems a bit too much of one extreme to the other. It’s either chewing balls or too much intent early in an innings - they should be trying to find a way to get to around 25 from 30 balls and then kick on. This means that low intent options such as defensive shots and works/pushes need to be less of an option, while low-risk rotational and boundary options should be more prioritized.

For example, where are the pockets for low-risk singles and low-risk twos? Can the first run be run a little harder to put pressure on fielding teams to give a higher chance of running two? Are there areas where boundaries can be accessed without playing aerial shots? These should be considerations, as opposed to a few blocks and then playing a high-risk slog to try and catch up with the strike rate.

In England’s three matches, batters have only reached the 30 ball mark eight times. They’ve had 16 dismissals in innings between 10 and 25 balls. This has got to change if they are to turn around this poor start to the tournament.

There seems to be a thought process that Ben Stokes will save the day, having missed the opening three matches with injury. Given that his bowling is unlikely to be utilized much, whether he can have a talismanic impact is up for debate, although his presence may well lift his team-mates. However, if he isn’t fit to face South Africa at the weekend, and England lose, his inclusion could be akin to a football team saving their best penalty taker for the 5th penalty in the shootout but losing before they even get a chance to take their kick.

Ultimately, it will be fascinating to see how England react to this start. I don’t anticipate wholesale changes in this tournament. I’m not even convinced that we will see them if England don’t make the knockout stages, despite a number of players (e.g. Duckett, Jacks, Salt, Hain not really able to do much more to state their case).

A succession plan has to be considered. 11 of the current 15-man squad are aged over 30, and nine are either 33+ or will turn 33 before the end of the year. However, international teams are often reticent to put good succession plans into place until it is too late, giving ‘one last crack’ to legacy players. Could some additional players have been given valuable tournament experience a little earlier in their career?

You could also say the same about Sam Cook’s lack of opportunity in Test cricket given that he would be the logical successor for either Stuart Broad or Jimmy Anderson - the Ireland test earlier this summer would have been the perfect chance to start integrating him into the set-up. England aren’t the only team guilty of this, but that doesn’t mean to say they can’t do things better.

Finally, England’s issues early in the tournament have been seized upon by the ‘anti-Hundred brigade’. These people are playing with a no-lose double-sided coin - the Hundred wouldn’t have got the credit if England were currently three wins from three, but it’s criticized as soon as England lose ODIs.

Plenty of other players in this tournament rarely, if ever, play domestic 50 over cricket. Virat Kohli, for example, hasn’t played domestic 50 over cricket for a decade. It doesn't appear to have affected his ODI record throughout his career - he averages close to 60, at a strike rate not far off 95.

I think most batters worldwide would take that…