Losing the plot

Michael Vaughan feels the one-day heat © Getty Images

The opening words of the former New Zealand wicketkeeper Ian Smith summed it up perfectly. Commentating for Channel 4 on the NatWest Series final at Lord's, he proclaimed: "Well, here we are at the home of cricket and the scene is set for a fantastic day. Two exciting, well matched teams, fast bowlers, dashing batsmen, bright sunshine, a full house expected later. There's only one thing missing ... England."

It would have been drily amusing if it was not overwhelmingly depressing. Yet again England were mere spectators at a big one-day international party. It is true that in recent times they have collected a fair amount of silverware hosting their own one-day series but their limited-overs efforts on a global platform are usually hapless and frequently horrible. In the 29-year history of major one-day tournaments England have never, repeat never, won a cup. Since the 1992 World Cup final they have failed to make it past the quarter-finals of the World Cup and ICC Knockout (now ICC Champions) Trophy. It is stretching a point to say that the 1997-98 Sharjah Champions Trophy which, under Adam Hollioake, England did win was a major tournament. There were only four teams in it, not including Australia.

But why are we such poopers at pyjama parties? Is it inexperience or inability or apathy? Or are other countries merely leaving us behind? It is not as if one-day cricket is rocket science. There is no business about how long to bowl a certain person or how many fielders to place on the boundary. Most of the work is done by the rule-makers (a maximum of 10 overs per bowler, no more than five fielders on the ropes.) For a large part one-day cricket is won by formula. England have simply not cracked the code.

The 1992 World Cup was England's watershed. Arriving at the final slightly fortuitously after a rain interruption in the semi-final had obliged South Africa to make 22 to win off one ball, England were superbly placed to win the tournament with Allan Lamb and Neil Fairbrother going well in pursuit of Pakistan's 249 for 6. Then Wasim Akram took World Cup cricket to another level with a devastating spell of reverse-swing fast bowling and England lost by 22 runs. So near, so far and not a sniff since.

It was the New Zealand side in that 1992 tournament, for which Smith himself kept wicket, that first illustrated how England were being left behind. Pakistan's explosive pacemen, South Africa's dynamic fielding and Australia's all-round potency were all very well but New Zealand were the torchbearers for a more ingenious form of one-day cricket.

They sent in a fearless slugger, Mark Greatbatch, to open the innings, insolently charging down the wicket to assault fast bowlers most batsmen greeted as "Sir". Their batting order was adjusted to suit the situation. They opened the bowling with a spinner, Dipak Patel. They selected an allrounder, Chris Harris, whose drifting leg-rollers delivered off the wrong foot would not, in England, be elevated beyond the village green. (No one could hit them then and no one can still; he has just taken his 200th ODI wicket.) New Zealand have continued to be innovative and successful in one-day cricket, closely followed for a time by Sri Lanka, whereas England have continued to plod along in their own unambitious way.

England could do with some of Jack Russell's eccentricity © Getty Images

In the past this has been because the people who ran the game failed to recognise the importance of one-day cricket. It was "common", a necessary evil, like fast food or soap operas, to be tolerated at best. It was part arrogance, part negligence that England did not begin hosting their own regular triangular tournament until only four years ago. Meanwhile Mohammad Azharuddin was racking up 334 ODI appearances. Darren Gough is England's most experienced one-day player with 131 caps (only Alec Stewart, with 170, has more).

Latterly the problems have been more of selection and continuity. The emphasis in one-day cricket has changed. Bits-and-pieces players are largely redundant. Now it is about specialists - with the odd exception of someone like Michael Bevan - players equally adept at the shorter and longer forms of the game: dashing batsmen capable of taming the best attacks playing orthodox cricket shots, bowlers with sizzle and spice who can take wickets on the most featherbed of tracks. At the start of July the top three ODI batsmen in the ratings were Ricky Ponting, Sachin Tendulkar and Adam Gilchrist, the top three bowlers Muttiah Muralitharan, Chaminda Vaas and Shaun Pollock. It goes without saying that the majority of players should be gazelles in the field.

Yet England still insist on trying to fiddle through with moderate allrounders and several donkeys in the field. This may work against teams like Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, visiting our shores on tricky pitches in the spring. On shirtfronts in midsummer against the best drilled XIs it is the equivalent of treading on your stumps.

It is not all bad. England consistently won the three-match Texaco series in the 1990s and last year humbled the South Africans in the NatWest Series final. And in the colossal Andrew Flintoff England have the best one-day allrounder in the world. One or two others are not bad either (Marcus Trescothick, Andrew Strauss, Steve Harmison.) But so often, just when the team look to have made a step forward, they take two back.

With the breadth of talent in England, it is not good enough. There are too many false dawns and blind alleys. There seems to be no coherent direction. What one craves, watching their abject one-day performances, is to be surprised, to be jolted out of one's seat by an unusual tactic, a mysterious, unfathomable slower ball, a sudden bouncer, an imaginative field setting, a batsman discovering hitherto unseen versatility. One cannot afford to play the waiting game in one-day cricket. Loiter in the shadows and the train has run away.

It is no coincidence, of course, that the most successful one-day side in England these last half-dozen years has been coached by a New Zealanderand it is worth briefly analysing Gloucestershire's approach. Score as many runs as possible, then hunt the opposition down using a pack mentality. The charging rhinos of Gloucestershire's attack - the Syd Lawrences and Courtney Walshes - were replaced by hyenas, harassing batsmen into mistakes with tight, sneaky bowling, predatory fielding and a wicketkeeper standing up to the stumps and yelling in your ear, "One false move and you're mine." A bit of Jack Russell-type eccentricity would not go amiss in England's one-day squad.

Duncan Fletcher: 43 wins from 94 ODIs ... but 18 of those wins have come against Zimbabwe or Bangladesh © Getty Images

England have become rather good at Test cricket - the Lord's Test against West Indies was their seventh victory in eight matches. How can their one-day performances - lost six of the last eight - be so at odds with their Test achievements? The answer is partly in the question. Steve Harmison took 45 wickets in those seven Test wins. He bowled 28 overs an innings in the recent series against New Zealand. Backed up by the galumphing Flintoff, he was the main reason England won that series 3-0.

In the NatWest Series Harmison was restricted to 10 overs per innings like everybody else, and Flintoff was unfit to bowl. Opponents saw Harmison off and made the necessary runs off the other bowlers. What we have been slow to realise is that the way to stem the flow in the field is not through the old-fashioned maxim of sticking to a trusted line and length to build up pressure.

Medium-pacers who dob it on the spot are so last decade. They will be launched into orbit unless they possess some genuine deceit. Somehow wickets must be conjured up. The prerequisite is for attacking bowlers who make things happen.

With too many agendas, indecision in England selection for one-day cricket rules. It is partly an attitude thing. ODIs are seen as a useful trial run for potential Test recruits. That is how Trescothick found his way in, and Strauss. There is nothing wrong with that, except that the one-day side ends up being a rolling experiment. As a result 52 different players have appeared for England in one-day cricket since the 1999 World Cup, 18 individuals tried in the 10 most recent matches. That compares with a reassuring stability in the Test team. Those first six Test wins were achieved with only three changes of personnel: Geraint Jones for Chris Read, Strauss for Nasser Hussain and Mark Saggers for the injured Simon Jones.

England's one-day record under Duncan Fletcher's guidance looks acceptable (played 94, won 43) but 18 of those wins were against Zimbabwe and Bangladesh; they do not count. One-day cricket is more about team unity and achieving that pack mentality, hounding teams into mistakes, and that is not where Fletcher's real expertise lies. His forte is in enhancing and harnessing individual skills. "Ra ra ra" is not his thing.

So where does this leave us? The answer is probably treading water. We are not particularly good at one-day cricket and we're not particularly bad. We have some decent one-day players, a good captain and an astute coach. But, until everyone works together to make waves, we will continue to end up on the beach.