As Dawid Malan was dismissed for a 17 ball 14 – his third run-a-ball low score in a row- Twitter tongues were wagging. Malan’s slow starts have become increasingly highlighted, despite his incredible average and strike rate, and the concerns are definitely legitimate but the blame does not lay with Malan alone.
We know Malan often starts fairly slowly – he has always done it – and he probably always will, it’s simply the way he plays. The tactic of sending him in at number three every time, irrespective of match situation does not really work.
The basics (short of any real analytical thought) are that the powerplay needs fast scoring from the off, the middle overs are more useful for accumulation, building towards a fast finish (if any cricket consultancies want to sign me up for analysis please do). Since Malan’s skills lie in accumulation and rotation, with explosive hitting late on, it surely follows that he would be far better suited to a slightly more malleable role in the middle order, where he is sent in to keep the runs ticking along in the middle order, before he has license to swing through the line in the last four?
This thought is complicated when we see that Malan scores very quickly through the middle overs and this is usually down to his platform setting through the powerplay but surely he still gives himself and England the best chance of a high score if he ticks over until the fifteenth over then goes mad?
It is not a stretch to say that Malan’s place may come under threat for the World T20 given that he also has shown he can struggle to get going against the ball when pace is taken off. In the various SENA countries, with truer pitches and fast bowling, he is unplayable when given time to build for a late onslaught, but starting against spin, he has looked reticent.
Next, once again this is someone sat at home trying to tell the England World Cup winning captain that he’s doing it all wrong, however there is distinctly too few people named Moeen Ali in this T20 team for my liking. Across domestic competitions Moeen is one of the best T20 all-rounders and captains and I find it slightly ludicrous that Sam Curran makes his way into this team ahead of him every time.
Curran is a really useful player and can be utilised as a pinch hitter and golden arm from time to time, but the issue is he isn’t even the best left-arm swing bowling all-rounder England have (more on this to come). If Curran is continually going to be utilised to bowl one expensive over and then bat at seven or lower every time then I just don’t see the point.
Back to Moeen, if England are to push to the next level as a T20 side, which they are fully capable of, the order needs to become more adaptable. No one in the England team screams ‘adaptable’ as much as Moeen Ali. During his career he has been routinely thrown around the order in all formats, suffering greatly as a consequence but this format and this team may be the perfect opportunity to use Moeen as the team sees fit.
If England are struggling early against spin, send him in, as recently as late February he could be found murdering India’s spinners for 43 whilst England were being flattened. Whilst it is a waste of his talent Moeen is also a great finisher, as evidenced by his two different showings of graceful brutality, Afghanistan 2019 (31 from 9) and West Indies 2017 (taking 61 from 14 on his way to 102 from 57).
So, David Willey.
What has happened to him in England’s T20 plans? The thought of Jofra Archer and David Willey in the powerplay would surely horrify many opening batsman but Willey has been largely sidelined since taking stacks of wickets against the Windies in the Caribbean and then against Ireland in the ODI series. Willey was proven as one of the leading powerplay bowlers in world cricket and performed brilliantly in the 2016 world cup but seems to be completely out of the picture nowadays. If we want to talk about Sam Curran’s ability as a pinch hitter then I think we can look no further than David Willey (yes two T20 hundreds at a rate of 140 David Willey).
Reliably striking in the powerplay with the ball, brutal striking with the bat and solid fielding make the fact that Willey seems to have disappeared almost entirely from England’s thoughts fairly mystifying. The only downside for David Willey’s inclusion is that at the death, he is -um- not in the picture.
Ben Jones wrote last year highlighting that Chris Jordan isn’t as good a death bowler as you (and me) maybe thought, especially when his yorkers aren’t landing, but there are some further analytics there which I will leave to those more qualified.
Jofra Archer is of course one of the world’s premier t20 pacers and he is fairly unhittable at the death when it goes right so no problem there. It isn’t exactly left field but Archer’s Sussex teammate Tymal Mills is one of the best T20 death overs bowlers in history, often going at 7s at the end of an innings. Mills’ skills (behave) are fairly simple yet massively effective, he rarely bowls yorkers (the most high risk high reward delivery in cricket) and nails a solid back-of-a-length pitch at speeds regularly above 90 mph. Mills cannot bat whatsoever but realistically in T20 there is no point in sacrificing top bowlers from 9 downwards because they can’t bat.
The Jos Butler debate is boring and ultimately quite pointless, yes he is England’s best opener, yes he is England’s best finisher. Giving him as many deliveries to do something mental is easily the best option of the two rather than continually sending him in with hopes of a nice 30 off 8.
Jason Roy struggled last year, looks decent this year. Not much else to say on that subject given that when he is at his best, he is an absolute nightmare to bowl at in the powerplay due to being quite mental and just going for blood early and never really letting up. Think back to his extraordinary innings of 78 in the 2016 world semi-final, hitting poor Corey Anderson for four boundaries from the opening over.
Ben Stokes is probably the player that would benefit from a move up the order the most, completely wasted at 6 (a position he rarely scores runs from) he would benefit massively from a promotion to bat in the top four (where both of his T20 hundreds have come from).
For my money recently I would not have said Ben Stokes makes it into England’s best T20 team (Moeen a better T20 player by a fair margin) but, he is Ben Stokes and to leave him out is to leave out the possibility that he will perform some nonsense akin to Headingly or the World Cup final.
Eoin Morgan is batting better than he ever has done in the shortest format and realistically he is in a position to martial a chase from 4 or 5 or to come in and hit straight at the end of an innings, depending when he sees fit.
England’s best team for the World T20? Not really too sure but It might look something like this, providing we’re not confident of Malan catching up his slow starts in the subcontinent.
- Roy
- Buttler
- Stokes
- Bairstow
- Morgan
- Moeen
- Willey
- Rashid
- Archer
- Mills
- Wood
This gives England the option to: get the best out of Stokes, gives more bowling options for when Moeen and Stokes don’t come off (likely), gives greater adaptability in the middle with finishers, gives powerplay bowling options, spinners who spin it either way, right arm seam/left arm seam, hitting at both ends of the innings, rotation and power in the middle.
Seems fairly good actually, unsure why I haven’t been called up by the selectors to oversee tactics.
Ps. it felt really weird to leave out Malan but I’m starting to think that people might have a point about not trusting him to catch up his starts in the subcontinent.
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