Published: Jun 12, 2015, 03:03 PM (IST)
Edited: Jun 12, 2015, 03:03 PM (IST)
It was a night of innumerable firsts at Edgbaston as England adopted a style of play that Victorians and Geoffrey Boycott, alike, were certain to frown upon. Ankur Dhawan reckons England has finally opened its arms to One-Day International (ODI) cricket.
Since its conception, the 50-over format has been the neglected child of English cricket. Although England have consistently hosted high profile ODI tournaments, World Cups, Champions Trophy etc, internally, there seems to have been a relentless moral conflict. On the rare occasion the format was embraced, it was done so, inculcating the virtuous values of Test cricket. But actually this was a corollary of a fossilised thought process and vapid lack of imagination, considering the rapid evolution of the 50-over game. READ: Joe Root wants England to maintain intensity against New Zealand in 2nd ODI
England were painfully slow to adapt to changes in limited-overs cricket, their atrocious World Cup record bears testimony to the same. So, to witness them surpass the gargantuan 400-barrier in a 50-over contest was a giant revolutionary stride. If English cricket was a long running family feud, the off-springs of the neglected child would have said to have exacted revenge in Birmingham. READ: England vs New Zealand, 1st ODI: Records galore
Considering that ODI cricket is played between World Cup to World Cup, the four-year hiatus is used to build a team from one event to another. During the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 there was a powerful feeling that Alastair Cook’s silhouette still hovered over England’s grim campaign in Australia and New Zealand. Although Eoin Morgan was chosen acting captain at the eleventh hour, the baton had not quite been passed. However, the summer preceding the Ashes 2015, allowed England yet another opportunity to wipe the slate clean, an opportunity they’ve squandered on myriad occasions in the past. READ: AB de Villiers is my role-model, insists Jos Buttler
While 400+ totals are no longer an oddity in ODIs, they are no longer a relic of the subcontinent either (one only needs to turn the clock back to the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015 when the aforesaid barrier was breached with astounding frequency). For England, it had remained uncharted territory till the fateful night at Edgbaston when all hell broke loose.
Records tumbled like nine-pins as Joe Root and Jos Buttler signalled the beginning of a renaissance. Buttler scored England’s and a personal second fastest hundred in ODIs; Root’s is now fourth on the list of fastest hundreds by a player for a side that has the notorious distinction of amassing the second fewest number of tons among top sides in limited overs cricket (Despite isolation, South Africa have done better). England also registered their highest total, and the largest victory margin and all this transpired in one night at Edgbaston.
Rishad D’Souza had recently alluded to the simple joy of playing sport in an article titled “Brendon McCullum’s philosophy on cricket is a lost basic”, which eloquently describes how child-like, uninhibited exuberance had been missing from the sport for far too long, that the very essence of cricket, which is recreational in nature, had been supressed by excessive professionalism, making a sport played by humans hideously mechanical. England of the yore typified the aforesaid. They made playing and watching ODI cricket a dreary affair.
One mustn’t count their chickens before they have hatched but England have never approached ODIs with such gay abandon as they did in their routing of a fantastic New Zealand outfit. It pointed to a shift in attitude, and though it is quite belated, England should be applauded for ringing in changes in the squad and its modus operandi, towards a game that had them beaten for eons.
(Ankur Dhawan, heavily influenced by dystopian novels, naturally has about 59 conspiracy theories for every moment in the game of cricket. On finding a direct link between his head and the tip of his fingers, he also writes about it.)
