The English should know better than to make their team favourites for an international one-day competition. Their process to Sunday’s coronation should have been serene. Instead, as usual, the wheels came off. As their hopes spilled on to the Cardiff greenery, the mask of invincibility slipped and the same old foibles were there for all to see. That it had happened in English conditions made the failure even more stark.
Truth is, though, that home conditions are not the be all and end all anymore. The game has changed. Today’s top players both hone and reveal their skills in all climates, on all pitches. As former England opener Graeme Fowler points out: “We’ve got jet travel. We’ve got the ability to fly in, fly out. These days, everybody plays all over the world. You don’t need the acclimatisation of old, the wickets are not that different.”
Even in Test match cricket, that is true. Conditions are negated as the modern Test player incorporates the mindset and skills of one day and T20 cricket. Few are seeking to build an innings lasting two days. Everything, like the human attention span, has shortened.
India arrived in England for the ICC Champions Trophy similarly tipped for success. So far they have not stumbled. They have looked in control. The supposed demons of early summer English pitches have not fazed Virat Kohli’s men. They have appeared supremely untroubled. Both batsmen and bowlers have done a job – and a good one.
Historically, this has not always been the case. India’s Test team, for instance, has been known to struggle in England. This unit is different. It is forged with experience. Seven members are over 30. They know - absolutely know - what playing in England is about. Compare that to Australia. They have four players 30 and over. Openers David Warner and Aaron Finch understand England and have the know how to adapt with speed. Thirty-year-old Moises Henriques wasn’t quite so educated and looked hopelessly out of place batting at number four.
No-one would ever claim all cricketers can step off a plane and be hitting sixes before they’ve even reached the luggage carousel. The trick is in picking a hardcore of players who can and surrounding them with intelligent others who can rapidly adapt.
India’s ability to change and thrive in all conditions must be the exemplar for world cricket if it is to keep moving with the times. Until recently, England would treat an Ashes tour as if it were the 1930s. Players would disappear Down Under for months as if they still travelled by boat. The thought process remains in English cricket that any failure on foreign soil is down to a lack of warm-up games? Really? Today’s top cricketers are global sports stars. The best play in several countries a year.
We really need to rid ourselves of this idea that cricket is a ‘long’ game. Those who are most revered have proved that is far from true. Cricket is 10% art and 90% entertainment. Most theatres have a few pictures in the foyer. The real event is on the stage. Its performers arrive ready. Rehearsal is already done. For the first few nights, they don’t carry a script under their arm.
It has taken cricket a long time to learn that short is good. At one time, spectators were invited to watch timeless Tests. That then meandered into days where three or four draws in a five-Test series was not uncommon. Even when the sport cottoned on to the concept of the one-day game, 60-over formats were all the rage. The one-day team was the Test team. The likes of Sunil Gavaskar and Geoffrey Boycott strolled out to take guard. From 60 overs, 200 was deemed a reasonable score.
In the following 40 years, however, the world has sped up. How enjoyable has the ICC Champions Trophy been for the speed at which it has unfolded? Many cricket fans would agree that its brevity actually makes it a much more exciting prospect than the World Cup, a torturously extended five-week affair peppered with meaningless games. In the ICC Champions Trophy, even in the group stages, every match counts. They come thick and fast. It quickly builds a momentum and carries an audience alongside. Maybe this is why the ICC decided to ditch associate members from its landmark tournament. If so, they were wrong to do so. The World Cup should be just that – a competition for the world. It is the format that makes it a yawn-fest until the latter stages, not its entrants.
It is not always easy to get cricket on the back pages of the newspapers in England, especially in a typically rain-sodden June, but the ICC Champions Trophy has caught the imagination. India deserves credit for playing such scintillating cricket. It is absolutely right that they should be in Sunday’s final, just as it would have been right for England to have been there with them.
England’s problem was that, in a global game, they forgot how to play at home.
John Woodhouse is TV critic, @Sentinel writer, penned biggest selling cricket book of 2016 with @gfoxyfowler, now working with Steve Harmison. @BBCRadioStoke and @BBCRadioManc
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