For a team that, in a manner of speaking, transformed white-ball cricket in recent times with an ultra-aggressive approach that saw them become the ODI Champions in 2019, after what is now widely considered the greatest ODI match ever to be played, England had to be one of the favourites heading into the 2023 World Cup in India.
But alas, the curse of the champions stuck with Jos Buttler’s England, as they put up what now is probably the weakest defence of a title by any team in the history of ODI World Cups.
England joined former champions Australia (1987 Winners) and Sri Lanka (1996 Winners) in the unwanted list of teams who failed to make it to the knockout stage of the ODI World Cup being the defending champions. The only silver lining in an otherwise disastrous campaign was a couple of wins late in the tournament which helped them to seal a spot in the 2025 Champions Trophy.
The unit looked completely out of touch with the format and to a large extent jaded as well in their Indian sojourn. And if you thought they might hit the reset button similar to how they did after the 2015 campaign, things did not change much. They recently suffered a 1-2 series defeat to West Indies.
However, veteran English all-rounder Moeen Ali, who was a pivotal part of England’s 2019 World Cup-winning side and was in the 2023 squad feels that they are going to bounce back soon enough.
In an exclusive conversation with News18 CricketNext, Ali opened up on England’s disastrous title defence in India. The all-rounder was brutally honest in admitting that everything faltered for them which one can’t afford while playing in Indian conditions.
“We didn’t bat well, bowl well, and field well, didn’t do the basics well. And in a place like India, you get punished. So that’s what happened to us. And then when we tried to play well, we just couldn’t get going because obviously the pressure of being desperate to win well, sometimes also comes. So yeah, it’s just one of those. Look, we’ve won the last couple of World Cups. You can’t win every tournament. We still got brilliant players, different brilliant management, and we will come back strong,” Ali told News18 CricketNext.
It was not the first time England faced such humiliation in a World Cup as they had a similar fate in the 2015 showpiece event. However, following the group stage exit in the 2015 ODI WC, the ECB made some big calls and Eoin Morgan was appointed the skipper who took full control of the side in white-ball cricket and revolutionised the side. The English team still has a good leader in Jos Buttler who guided them to 2022 T20 WC glory, but they still need a revamp in the set-up to bounce back.
Meanwhile, Ali recently played in the Abu Dhabi T10 League for Samp Army, a franchise he loved playing as he even asserted that the team culture is one of the best alongside Chennai Super Kings.
“I absolutely love playing for Samp Army. It’s an amazing franchise. There’s only one or two franchises I’ve played in where the atmosphere and the environment are as good as each other, obviously, CSK is one and Samp Army is the other, maybe one or two of those. We feel this is probably one of the better ones because in a short space of time, we gel quickly, and a lot of credit goes to the coaches and the management,” he said.
“And to play T10 for them was amazing last year, I was approached by Samp Army and, you know, when you play T10 and I’ve played in other teams, and I’m always a bit like, I’m not sure I want to play for them and my manager said, look, come Samp Army is a new team and when I got to know the guys, I knew this is the place to play and be part of this journey. They only started not long ago and look where they are now. I’m very proud to be a small part of that journey and hopefully in the future, even if I don’t ever play for Samp Army again, I’m very proud that I’ve been part of this franchise,” he added.
Talking about his experience of playing the T10 format, Moeen explained how the format poses big challenges for both batters and the bowlers.
“It’s a difficult game. Honestly, I know what it looks like probably with the outsider who doesn’t know much about T10 and that it’s just guys going out slogging and it’s very difficult as a batter also. If you play a couple of dot balls or even singles and stuff, you’re not hitting boundaries from ball one almost, it’s very difficult. Pressure is on, you need to keep the run rate going and sometimes you might be out of form, could be just not playing well, technically not great, but, you have to almost clear your mind and just play whatever is in front of you. And it’s very difficult. This format is fast and it’s difficult for the bowlers also but if you see in T10, there are a lot of hat-tricks in such a short period of time, because the batters have to keep going. And so the bowler also, if he bowls well, he really has bowled well, because sometimes in T20 cricket you can bowl well and get away with getting three wickets from not many runs, or you can bowl badly and go for a lot of runs,” he added.
The star all-rounder has also been retained by CSK for the next season of Indian Premier League where he will play under Mahendra Singh Dhoni’s captaincy. He was in all praise of the legendary India wicketkeeper.
“It’s going to be amazing. I’m looking forward. Obviously, it’s again another brilliant franchise that I’m lucky to be part of. So yeah, we’ll see. I’ve learned a lot from his captaincy. He’s a brilliant captain, a brilliant person. And everybody knows that. I mean, so many people have praised him and his captaincy. So everybody knows how good he is,” he hailed the CSK skipper.
