Cricket’s oldest nation is now its newest winner in its latest T20 format. And the cricket world could not be happier after having experienced this wonderful break for Team England that had won nothing in ICC’s global events in the 35 years since the country hosted the first Prudential World Cup in 1975.
The breakthrough was achieved by a stunning change of attitude and approach. Aggression was something they had to learn from scratch and how well they managed it in a format that seemed very alien to their cricket culture. Time then to welcome England to the rarefied world of champions.
There was little doubt about the two best teams being in the final even if it was a close run thing for Australia who seemed doomed when they needed 38 to win off the last two overs against a resurgent Pakistan. The Michael Hussey blast that day was an astounding event on par with Yuvraj Singh’s six sixes in an over, which seems so wistfully far away in time in Indian cricket now.
Having assiduously practised the art of hitting sixes while bringing in techniques from golf’s range hitting and baseball’s power swing, England’s batsmen brought it off in the middle when it counted most. Never mind if the top three batsmen in the order were originally South Africans and the fourth an Irishman, with UK-grown players well behind the quartet. But then England were always the League of Nations in cricket.
The bowlers were also quite brilliant at the vital end of the championship. The spinners were on spot right through the event and they put the lie to the general theory that only Asian spinners are crafty enough to keep the batsmen on a leash in T20 cricket. Swann and Yardy were seen at their most efficient against the big-hitting Aussies too.
The slow, looping bouncer, which probably used to be referred to as a long hop when the game was a little younger than it is now, was another English innovation that paid rich dividend. Ryan Sidebottom was quite the master of the teasing delivery that foxed quite a few batsmen, including those of quickness of eye and fleetness of foot.
If Australia were all pace in the final after having used the weapon successfully earlier, particularly in Barbados, England were subtler with changes of pace. What the Aussies may not have realised in the semi-finals was not all Asian batsmen dislike the bounce and that the Beausejour Stadium was certainly not the Kensington Oval. By pressing on with pace, they gave runs away liberally to the Pakistanis.
As Collingwood said so aptly, the win gets a monkey off Team England’s back. The object of derision for so long for having failed to win a global event, the team may even have begun to live up to the image spun by the critics when they lost the Champions Trophy final at home after taking eight West Indies wickets with a mountain of runs still remaining to back up the bowlers to get the tail.
T20 cricket has a lot to do with fearlessness on which rides the ability to take on the best bowlers regardless of their speed or guile. Asians were beginning to believe they were the only ones gifted with this instinct for outright attack in this form of the game with batsmen freely stepping out to take on the fastest bowlers in the early world T20s in which India and Pakistan were the winners.
The Aussies and English batsman seem to have worked overtime to up their batting tactically to attack. Until the Pakistanis challenged Australia for a slot in the final, this world T20 was all about the Ashes rivals setting the arena alight with big shots. What this promises is future World T20s are going to be even more competitive than the edition in the West Indies.