3 Chinks in England's ODI juggernaut 

#1 The batting can be found out on tricky surfaces (One Dimensional approach with the bat)

England have one of the most dominant batting line-ups in ODI cricket at the moment. Jason Roy, Johnny Bairstow, Alex Hales, Joe Root, Ben Stokes, Eoin Morgan, Jos Buttler and Sam Billings – each of the listed player comes hard at you. Hence, it is no surprise looking at the number of 300+ scores England have racked up in the last 2-3 years.

But there is one problem with this batting line-up. They have struggled when the ball has done something in the air and off the pitch. Take, for example, the game at Lord’s last year against South Africa when they were 20/6 as the Proteas pace attack troubled the English batsmen with swing and seam. The England batsmen kept driving, flashing and going for their shots despite losing wickets one after the other.

One more instance is this year when they lost 5 wickets for just 8 runs against Australia in Adelaide as Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins ran riot. The also fell short of a good score in a crucial semi-final in the Champions Trophy game last year against Pakistan when they played on a dry surface and the Pakistani pacers got some good reverse swing. They ended up scoring just 211 and were knocked out of the tournament.

Their approach could be termed as one-dimensional as they try to keep going hard irrespective of the situation. Even in the game against Scotland, England seemed to be in a position of strength with about 25 to get off 28 balls and Moeen Ali tried to slog one when there was no need for it. Yes, when it comes off it looks good but when it doesn’t it makes you and the team look silly.

Hence, there have been multiple occasions when the England batting line-up has failed to assess the conditions and then try to get to a competitive total. They have also failed to read the match situation at times which has cost them as well. Their method to keep going after the bowling might work on most days but they can also fall short when the surface is tricky.