Embarrassment to foster radical change

A couple of months ago, Stuart Broad gave a press conference looking forward to the World Cup. At it he stated that England would have to "have an absolute stinker" if they were not going to reach the quarter-finals.

Broad could not have put it more accurately. After five games, England have been well-beaten four times and are eliminated alongside the likes of the UAE, Scotland and Afghanistan. In the history of a team that has endured more than its share of ignominy, this may yet come to be ranked as the lowest point.

But we're fools if we're surprised. England came into the tournament having not won an ODI series for more than a year. They had lost two of their last three ODIs against Bangladesh (it is now three of four). They have a grim World Cup record going back to their defeat in the final of 1992, having won only five matches in six tournaments against teams from the top eight of the Test rankings. Failure is not an aberration; it is a recurring theme.

And they have not just been beaten. They were thrashed by Australia, humiliated by New Zealand - never have they lost an ODI with more deliveries remaining unused - and comfortably defeated by Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. It would be disingenuous to claim that poor fortune - Chris Jordan's run out decision in this match or James Anderson's at the MCG - contributed. England were second best on every occasion.

Yet they were extended every advantage. The ECB rescheduled the Ashes so they could commit all their preparation time to this tournament. They arranged five months of ODIs as a lead-up. They were party to the scheduling of the tournament that rendered it most unlikely that they could be eliminated at this stage and their wealth - the facilities, the support, the coaching - is the envy of just about every team that has beaten them. They have no excuses.

Senior players in the current team must take some responsibility. Eoin Morgan has been out for a duck five times in nine innings, while Ian Bell has only four centuries to show from his 160 ODIs. James Anderson has hardly swung a ball in the tournament and Broad, a tail-end batsman and fast-medium seamer by international standards, is now at the stage where there are doubts over his future. None of them can complain if they are dropped.

It is inevitable, in such moments, that a focal point is found for the anger. Someone to blame. And it is inevitable that the coach, Peter Moores, and the MD of England cricket, Paul Downton, will be in the firing line. Neither can feel secure in their job. While Moores has a decent record for identifying talented players, there is limited evidence of an ability to coax the best out of them. The decision to change the team on the eve of the tournament not only squandered much of the preparation time, but spread unease within the camp.

England looked fearful and timid. They looked overawed by the occasion at the MCG, outclassed in Wellington and nervous in Adelaide. It is Moores' job to create the environment in which they players are able to play their best cricket and the evidence would suggest he has failed to do it. While he denies he is over-reliant upon statistics, his insistence in the immediate aftermath of defeat that he would have to "look at the data" before drawing conclusions over England's World Cup exit risked adding ridicule to pain.

It seems unlikely that Downton could survive Moores' sacking. Only a year ago, Downton described Moores as "the coach of his generation" in an appointment process that many feel was stacked in Moores' favour from the start. Having backed his man so forcibly, it would be almost impossible for Downton to sack him and remain in position.

It is probably Downton's position that is more precarious. After a week in which he has been publically undermined by the ECB's new chairman over the stance towards Kevin Pietersen, it is hard to think of one area in which Downton has benefited England cricket.

But it is hard to predict their immediate future. The ECB have a new CEO - Tom Harrison - and a new chairman - Colin Graves - who have yet to officially take office. While Graves' record at Yorkshire would suggest he will not react well to this reverse, he is not currently in a position to take action. Besides, just as it is asking a great deal of a new coach to revive the fortunes of England, so it is simplistic to blame the failures of the current team on one, two or even three men.

Sacking Downton and Moores will not change the over-coaching that pervades almost every level of English cricket. It will not change the prioritising of money over merit, the schedule that now sees England play 17 Tests in nine months, the dilution in the standard of county cricket that has occurred over the last half-dozen years or a culture that promotes coaches who are better equipped to make Powerpoint presentations that actually improve a player's performance.

Equally, it would be naive to suggest that recalling Kevin Pietersen - for all his ability - would have provided a silver-bullet solution. Pietersen's inclusion would not have helped with the absence of a left-arm spinner or left-arm seamer. It would not have taught the bowlers to deliver yorkers or generate the pace that might have unsettled opposition batsmen. It might, perhaps, have masked some problems. But it would not have solved them.

The England management believe that the recruits they gather from the county game are not up to standard. While that is partially true - England's best yorker bowler, Luke Fletcher of Nottinghamshire, has something of Samit Patel about his frame - the England system may be equally at fault. After years of taking their best players out of county cricket, the England management have created a divide between the domestic and international games. Furthermore, by identifying the most talented young players and taking them into the national academy system, they have played a part in ruining them.

It is at Loughborough - Bluffborough as it should be known - where fast bowlers are homogenised, where individuality is crushed and where a game that should be largely instinctive and joyful becomes scientific and filled with fear. At every level, coaches and support staff motivated by justifying their own continued employment, tinker and tamper with natural talent. Players prosper despite, not because, of their involvement.

England have, for some time, preferred pliable characters in their team. They have preferred graft over flair. They have alienated difference and given too much credit to those "from the right sort of family" rather than those who might win games. In England, the greater crime is to be caught at long-on rather than leaving a straight ball.

Could AB de Villiers or Lasith Malinga or Muttiah Muralitharan have developed in England? Could Mitchell Starc or Chris Gayle survived? Could Brendon McCullum have been given the freedom or Glenn Maxwell the backing? It seems doubtful.

There has been denial within England cricket for a long time. They have denied the poor form of their captains - be it Andrew Strauss, Alastair Cook or Eoin Morgan - they have denied the lack of pace in their seamers or the lack of bite from their spinners. They have denied the evidence of defeat after defeat in global tournaments. They have sought excuses rather than answers.

So good may come of this debacle. Now, after England have been shown to belong among the also-rans of world cricket - and remember it is only a year since they were defeated by Netherlands in the last global limited-overs tournament in which they participated - the mask has slipped, the cloak has been removed. There can be no concealing the poverty of England's cricket now.

This setback will empower Graves to make the changes he wants within the domestic and international games. It will be used to justify revolution. There will be radical change. This performance - or lack of it - cannot be tolerated.