A World Cup Post-Mortem

I do love watching cricket. There's something about sitting at Lord's with a cold pint in your hand and watching a Test match that just has the word perfection wrapped around it. I feel almost the same for One Day matches and Twenty20, which is why I was extremely disappointed (but not at all surprised) when England were knocked out of the World Cup this year after several withering displays.

Their only win of this wretched campaign came against Scotland. Says it all really. Six years ago at the 2009 Twenty20 World Cup, England were beaten by The Netherlands. A year before that, my uncle took his pub cricket team on a tour of the Netherlands to play against their national team in three matches. Facing them were eight of the eleven players who would go on to beat England the following year. My uncle won two out of the three matches.

Whilst my love for the long format of the game has no equal, I can't help but feel it's being championed at the expense of the shorter versions. Have we ever really excelled at any major international tournament? No. Why? Because we always have one eye on the next tour, whether it be at home or away. The problem is that if we forsake the short game for Test cricket, we risk dragging the form we have in the ODIs and World Cups into our long game.

Take this year, for example. We have four (yes, four!) Test cricket tours in 2015. Well, the first test of the last tour starts on Boxing Day and stretches into next year, but I'm still counting it. First, we're off to the West Indies for three tests, less than five weeks after our disheartening World Cup showing. Then, roughly two and a half weeks after the final ball is played in Bridgetown, we're in North West London, at the home of cricket, to play against New Zealand. At the beginning of July, we're in the Welsh capital to kick off this little-known cricketing phenomenon called The Ashes!

I know what you're going to say at this point, that teams for the shorter formats are picked with different criteria to Test cricket, and you're right. However, the coaching staff is broadly similar and if there's no confidence in them then there's no confidence within the team, no matter which players you pick. Alastair Cook should stay on as Test captain, I think he's done brilliantly personally, and I still believe that he's the right man to lead this team. He's still one of the best batsmen we have to offer on the world stage. His omission from the World Cup squad may come as a blessing in disguise as he won't be tainted with the abject failure of his peers.

So where did it all go wrong for England? Well, it didn't help that we started against the co-hosts who had beaten us twice in ODIs in January. Our problem was that we didn't learn from those defeats. We never thought, 'Hey, we're doing something wrong here, how can we stop doing it wrong and do it right instead?'

We followed that up with one of the lowest ODI run totals of all time. It was so low that New Zealand might as well have brought some fans on to play instead. They needed less than thirteen overs to crush a deplorable England. Then we beat Scotland and everyone shit themselves thinking we had a chance to win the World Cup. Turns out, this is very English as we do it every time there's a major tournament in any sport.

Who should take the blame for our loss against Sri Lanka? The bowlers. Without a doubt the most pathetic display ever. Six bowlers with just one maiden (Broad) and only one wicket (Moeen) to show for their 284 balls bowled. This need to be sorted out. Quickly.

I'm looking forward to the Tests this summer, not least because I hope to get to Lord's at some point. But if England manage to recreate their short game form into their Test form, I might not even bother, because it would be an utter waste of time.