With a World Cup on the horizon in Australia and New Zealand this series is supposed to gearing Peter Moores' side up for that tournament. The problem is that England have absolutely no chance of winning it. I like Moores as a coach and a he comes across well as a person through the media, but his insistence at keeping Alastair Cook as captain and therefore in the side is pigheaded at best. Cook is a poor captain in all forms of the game but is a great Test match batsman, so why not just concentrate on Test cricket? He can even captain the Test match side if he likes, I don't care, but limited overs cricket is not his thing.
England under Moores are turning back to the the doldrum years of Ian Austin, Adam Hollioake and Matthew Fleming where being reasonable at both batting and bowling in county cricket seemed to guarantee a player an England cap. And yet James Taylor, the one bright spot of today's game with an eye-catching 90 before his lack of match fitness got the better of him, has onlt just got into the side.
England's bowling is also pretty ordinary and lacks discipline; if you aren't express pace or turn it 90 degrees then you need to land the thing exactly where you want it to give your captain a chance when setting a field. Moeen Ali is a decent cricketer but kept dragging the ball halfway down and Ben Stokes ought to be on the next plane home in the woeful form that he finds himself in (worth his place when playing well).
Post-match interviews seem to run along the lines of:
- We've let ourselves down.
- We'll work hard in practise/nets.
- We have some great players in the squad.
- We can still win the World Cup.
