It happened again. Several wickets down, a loss on the cards, then England win.
In the last year alone, English cricket has managed to produce no fewer than 3 instances where you feel you may have just witnessed something extraordinary. From the nail-biting clinching of the Cricket World Cup, to Ben Stokes’ Headingley heroics, and now a star showing from the pairing of Jos Buttler and Christopher Roger Woakes. So, what is it that makes this current generation of English players so special?
For one, and at risk of sounding heavily clichéd, the impossible always seems possible. This much is obvious, what remains harder to pin down is why. One element is undeniable, and that is talent. Not just the type of talent that gets your foot in the door of a team, but the level of raw talent that allows individuals to flip a game on its head. England right now have a wealth of game-changers. Just to mention a few, Stuart Broad can rattle through any batting line-up when in the zone, Ollie Pope appears to have a talent beyond his years of being able to stabilise a pending battling collapse, and Ben Stokes can do anything.
Perhaps though, it is if you look beyond these obvious stars that you begin to find an answer for why England always have in it them to do it on the day.
England too, have players happy to play the support role. Dom Sibley is happy to play the old-fashioned opener and is a fantastic example, but the elephant in the room in this respect is Chris Woakes. I’ve seen umpteen pieces in the last few days about his underrated status, but that will not stop me from banging the drum a little bit more.
In two of the aforementioned England spectacles, England could not have done it without Woakes. What will be remembered is his score of 84*, but he’d already stamped his authority over the match. In Pakistan’s second innings, Woakes disposed of both captain Azhar Ali and star man Babar Azam. This was despite Woakes only bowling 5 overs.
Similarly, in the CWC Final, it seems to fly under the radar quite how well Woakes bowled against New Zealand. Understandably, the final overs and Super Over attracted a lot of buzz, but Woakes picked up 3 wickets in 9 overs with the tightest economy of any England bowler (4.11).
The point stands that perhaps England keep defying the odds because they have stumbled upon a great depth of quality. The fact a team can have Chris Woakes and not parade him as a star talent speaks volumes about the current England set-up.
But conventional sporting wisdom suggests that talent alone is not enough. Here, many would depart down the line of talking about ‘elite mentality’, the self-belief to do anything. Instead, I think team culture plays a larger role in terms of building a support system for players to feel comfortable in.
A team can have the win at all costs, cutting edge mentality, and it may very well reach the pinnacle of sport. But when it crashes and burns, it will do so in the ugliest manner possible.
Here, I think a nice parallel can be drawn between what will be referred to as England X (early 2010s) and England Y (late 2010s).
The rise and fall of England X is highlighted superbly in The Edge, a must watch for all cricket fans. The pursuit of world domination exerted such pressure on the players that cracks of all kinds began to appear. This manifested, in one example, through splits in squad harmony. Famously, Kevin Pietersen did a fantastic job in upsetting practically the whole bowling attack and vice versa.
Perhaps a more insightful contrast can be drawn between X and Y in terms of player welfare. The Edge heartbreakingly finishes with the story of Jonathan Trott, and how the mental pressure of the game took its toll on him. Fundamentally, Trott could not find the help and support in the game that he so truly needed.
So when Stuart Broad and Jofra Archer both spoke to the Sky team about how their teammates checked in on them, the former after being dropped and latter after breaching the bio-secure regulations, my heart was warmed slightly. The England set-up appears to be moving well away from an uncomfortable environment where worries get silenced, to one where players are happy to share with each other the load on their shoulders.
It is an environment like this which allows players to thrive in hard times. A good case study for this is Jos Buttler. Buttler turned the game for England against Pakistan. In the same week that online calls for his replacement began to turn from whispers to shouts, Buttler showed the player he can be.
A strong factor in the ability to pull something out of nothing may very well come from the players existing in an environment where they can feel duly comfortable.
When undeniable talent is coupled with players feeling like they have a home in the team, you do truly have the makings of a team who just may do something special.
The last year of English cricket has been truly special, and may it continue for as long as my heart can put up with the stress of it all.
Photo credit: Evening light at Lord’s Cricket Ground – cc-by-sa/2.0 – © Hugh Chevallier
