England players in the IPL

Just a day after Matt Prior talked of England players being frustrated to miss out on the various T20 leagues around the world, the Professional Cricketer’s Association has said that England’s cricketers are ‘substantially underpaid’ and suggested they be compensated for missing out on T20 leagues. It is a stance to be expected; they are a union at the start of contract talks and if they didn’t say their clients should be paid more then they would hardly be doing their job. They may even be correct; I don’t know how much Cricket Australia, for instance, pay their players relative to the ECB.

But that only applies to the actual pay coming from the boards; the notion that the players be compensated for missing out on T20 leagues is ridiculous. There is no way to know on what sort of money, if any, England are missing out; even a cursory glance at the IPL salaries shows that there is no rhyme nor reason to how much the individual players make and it is nonsensical to try to compensate them for that. There is also the fact that England’s players are eligible to play in the IPL and indeed any T20 league that does not conflict with the international schedule. The most notable example is Kevin Pietersen, but there are several England players who have taken part in these events. They are considered less valuable because they have to play for England, but it is hardly an onerous requirement for the players to put the cricket for which they are centrally contracted ahead of foreign domestic events. Apart from anything else, the fact is that the players are compensated for not playing in the T20 leagues; their compensation is the opportunity to play for their countries. I am not so unrealistic as to think that should be their only motivation, but it certainly is enough to be compensation.

The frustrations of the players for missing out on the high-paying T20 leagues is understandable, but unavoidable. As I have pointed out before, there is simply no time for each of the various events to fit in the calendar and international cricket must come first. Just looking at the IPL, the BCCI are unwilling to compromise on the timing of the tournament (or anything else, for that matter) and there is no more room for the ECB to compromise. The England players are already allowed to play in half of the IPL, any more concessions from the ECB would not be compromise but surrender. Such a surrender would damage the ECB and very possibly cut into the players’ real salaries as certainly would negatively affect most or all other facets of the game in England and Wales. There is nothing for the ECB to gain by giving any more ground to the IPL and as disappointing and frustrating as that no doubt is to the players there is simply no getting around it.

The IPL issue is not going to go away, at least not as long as the BCCI remain intransigent and determined to run roughshod over everything which they do not control. But the conflict between the IPL and international schedule is their fault and not the fault of the ECB. If the PCA or individual players are unhappy about that conflict they ought to direct their complaints to the BCCI. As futile as it would be, it would make more sense than to lobby the ECB for an impossible change.

Final round of Super Six matches

The final round of matches at the Women’s World Cup takes place tonight with Australia already in the final and one of the West Indies, England or New Zealand still with a chance at joining them. The West Indies have the easiest path at the start as they have six points to the four of England and New Zealand. All they need to do is win. England and New Zealand play each other and they both would have to win that match, hope the West Indies lose and then hope that their NRR is better than that of the Windies. England are in the slightly better position in that regard as the White Ferns’ defeat in the previous match was large enough to send their NRR below that of England.

The matches, like the ones in the last round of the group stages, are not simultaneous. This is once again a major oversight by the ICC and tournament organisers and this time gives England and New Zealand a slight advantage. They will know at some point during their match what, if anything, they can do to get into the final.

(Note about numbers: from here the words ‘around’ and ‘roughly’ will be both common and quite important. Extreme scenarios, such as a team defending a total of 100 or taking all of fifty overs to chase such a total would push the NRRs a bit above or below the maxima or minima I give, but they are so unlikely and the differences so small I have rounded.)

The analysis is very simple if the West Indies win the match against Australia: the same two teams will meet in the final. If the West Indies lose, however, both England and New Zealand will look very carefully at the margin. The NRR for both teams will probably drop even with a win, but a very large victory for Australia, something in the neighbourhood of 45-50 runs or with 10-12 overs to spare (or more, in both cases) then the NRR of the West Indies will drop so low it will make the England v New Zealand match effectively a semi-final.

England and New Zealand won’t know their task until late, but they will both know at the start of the match that a high-scoring affair will suit them well. The West Indies’ NRR will not be more than about 0.900 even with a very narrow defeat and whilst the NRR’s of both England and New Zealand could drop well below that (to about 0.785 and 0.725, respectively) the higher the total score in their match is, the less the NRR will drop. For England, a first innings score of greater than 225 (for either them or New Zealand) should be enough to ensure that if they win and the West Indies lose it will be England playing Australia in the final. There is no (realistic) corresponding number for New Zealand, but their required margin of victory also drops the higher scoring the match is. It will still be around 30-35 runs at best, however.

England are in far from an ideal spot, needing help from the Aussies, but it is far from gloom and doom for them. All three teams will probably fancy their chances from here. In summary:

West Indies
Any win will put them in the final and a loss by more than about 45-50 runs or 10-12 overs will send their NRR so low that they will be out of the tournament. Anything between and they are cheering for New Zealand to win by a relatively narrow margin, certainly fewer than forty runs.

England
Need the West Indies to lose first and then need to beat New Zealand. If they score (or concede) more than about 225 in the first innings then any margin of victory will do, but for lower scores they may have to win by as many as 25-30 runs or five to eight overs, depending on how close the first match is.

New Zealand
Need the West Indies to lose and need to beat England, possibly by as many as forty runs or ten overs. If Australia win by a large enough margin, however, any win will do.

England in the Super Sixes

England resume their Women’s World Cup defence tonight/tomorrow morning when they play Australia the first of three matches in the Super Six stage. The top two teams in the Super Sixes go through to the final and England start out fourth on points/net run rate carried forward after Sri Lanka’s upset of India knocked the latter out. It’ll be a bit of an uphill task, therefore; England have very little room for error now.

England will play Australia, New Zealand and South Africa in this round; Australia are very much the form team and are the only one of the six in the second round to have carried forward maximum points. New Zealand also looked very strong in the group stage until losing to Australia, so the only match in which England will be comfortable favourites will likely be the second one against South Africa. This presents an obvious problem for England, but there is also the subtler problem that the West Indies and Sri Lanka, whilst certainly deserving of their spot in the second round, are going to be underdogs against Australia and New Zealand. (Though given that Sri Lanka have now won twice against heavily-favoured opposition they cannot be counted out.) Because England start out fourth, they will need to actually better the results of Australia and New Zealand. The upshot is that unless England get some help from one of the other Group A teams, they may have to win all three of their Super Six matches.

England looked sharp after their loss in the opening match and knocked off India and the West Indies without a great deal of difficulty, but there is still room for improvement and with Australia in ominous looking form they probably have to improve. Most notable even in their wins in Group A was how England seemed to let up with the ball during the middle overs. This is not uncommon in ODIs, of course, but after getting well on top of both India and the West Indies it was a bit troubling to see them start to let those teams back into the game. Especially in the win over India, the final margin was much closer than it ought to have been. If England manage to take early wickets against Australia they will need to be more aggressive; Australia bat deep enough that they can recover lost ground if they are given the chance. England also have the fitness of Katherine Brunt about which to worry. She came off in the middle of an over after turning her ankle against the West Indies. There’s been no news that I’ve seen concerning how well she has come back from that, but if she is not fit it will be a massive blow for England.

England may have a slight advantage with the match being played in Mumbai; they have already played two matches at the Brabourne Stadium and Australia have to fly over from Cuttack, where the conditions were rather different. The toss will likely be a big factor as well. The conditions in Mumbai have really favoured the bowlers in the early morning before flattening out in the afternoon and in each of England’s three matches the side batting first have got off to a poor start. It’s possible that this might have even been the difference between a win and a loss for England in the opening match. It is another early start against Australia and it is probably too much to hope that Australian captain Jodie Fields will make the same mistake that her West Indian counterpart did in batting first if she wins the toss, so England will very much be hoping for better luck after Charlotte Edwards lost all three tosses in the group stage.

The match against Australia is not quite a must-win affair for England, but to lose would end any realistic hopes of topping the group and throw them into a very open battle for the second spot where net run rate would likely come into play. The early loss against Sri Lanka may yet prove very costly.

Women’s World Cup group permutations

The final round of group matches in the Women’s World Cup are tonight and especially in Group A there is a lot for which to play. Unfortunately, the matches are not being played simultaneously. I criticised the tournament format in my preview and this is another poor decision by the organisers. India and Sri Lanka will now have the benefit of knowing the result of the England v West Indies match before their ends and that should not happen.

Those matches are in the more interesting Group A. Sri Lanka’s shock win over England means that all the teams in the group are level on two points and the only difference at the moment is Net Run Rate. (And in a quirk of statistics, since every team have both bowled and batted exactly 100 overs the NRRs are just the run differentials for each team divided by 100.) The West Indies’ crushing win over Sri Lanka wiped out their heavy defeat to India and then some, putting them top of the table with a NRR of +1.04. They’re followed by India and England on +0.73 and +0.26 respectively and Sri Lanka still sit at the foot of the table on -2.03.

The practical upshot of this is that whichever two teams win tonight are guaranteed to go through and whichever of the two losers has the best NRR will join them in the Super Sixes. All four teams could theoretically go out with a loss and the other result going against them, but the danger is greater for England in Sri Lanka than it is for India and the West Indies. In fact, the only realistic way for Sri Lanka to progress is to beat India. Any loss and their NRR is so bad that they will go out. It’s not, therefore, quite a must-win match for England. But if England don’t win then they will be relying on India in the late match because if India lose they would have to do so by a lot to end up with a worse NRR than England. For the same reason, a win for the West Indies will probably make India safe. The most likely way for them to go out is to lose to Sri Lanka and have the West Indies lose to England by a reasonable margin, though if they lose very heavily to Sri Lanka (by enough to send their NRR under that of England) they could go out even with a West Indies win. It’s quite unlikely though. The West Indies are the safest team at the moment; they would need to lose heavily to England and have India narrowly beaten by Sri Lanka to go out.

The other interesting aspect of the last round of matches in Group A is the points carried forward. If England beat the West Indies and Sri Lanka go out then England will actually carry forward maximum points despite their early defeat. The only other team capable of doing so is Sri Lanka and that is quite unlikely as it would require the West Indies to be eliminated. There is no way for India to advance, however, without having lost to one of the other teams to go through and it is very unlikely that the West Indies could do so either. They would have to beat England narrowly and have India lose very heavily to Sri Lanka to send India out.

In Group B things are much simpler. Australia and New Zealand are already through and the winner of the antipodean clash will carry maximum points forward to the Super Sixes. On form, one would actually expect the White Ferns to win; they have dominated their group matches so far whilst Australia have had minor scares against both of their opponents. But Australia have had the better of the recent head-to-head matches, so it should be a very interesting match.

The other match in the group is probably the more important though; Pakistan and South Africa will play each other for the last spot in the Super Sixes. I said in my preview that I though South Africa would pull off a minor upset and I still think that will be the case, but there is not a lot from which to choose between the sides.

My guess is that we will end up seeing England, the West Indies, India and South Africa join Australia and New Zealand in the next round, but there are some good looking matches and it should be very interesting.

Women’s World Cup preview

The Women’s World Cup gets underway soon in India and it’s so close that the organisers have even deigned to finalise the fixtures. The hosts play the West Indies on Thursday to start the tournament and the following day will see the defending champions England play Sri Lanka. The final is set for 17 February.

The format for this tournament is the same as the one four years ago, which is disappointing because it really is a poor one. The tournament starts with two groups of four and the top three from each carry their points forward to a Super Six stage. The top two teams from the Super Six stage then play each other in the final whilst the third and fourth teams and fifth and sixth teams, instead of just keeping their places from the group, also have a playoff. I never like having two group stages and I really don’t like having the top two teams in a group play each other for the final. I accept the need for a final, but that means there needs to be either an extended set of knockouts or more than one group. If there is only one table then position in that table should determine where a particular team finishes. (I have a similar gripe about the rugby Premiership.)

It is difficult to have only eight teams play a decent length tournament (though there are other teams who could have been invited and thus eased this problem), but there are ways to construct the tournament better without making it absurdly short and even ways to construct it without making it absurdly long. The obvious solution would be to have the teams from the two groups play knockouts against each other. The various permutations of this can lead to a tournament of almost any length and one that would actually make some sense.

But the format is what it is and the ones that were used for the 2012 T20 World Cups or any of the last few Men’s World Cups would suggest that this problem isn’t about to get better. Group A is England’s group and they share it with India, the West Indies and Sri Lanka. Group B then contains Australia, Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand.

I would expect England and India to compete for the top spot in Group A. England have the better record and are probably the better team, but India might just be favourites as they are at home. England had to work hard to beat India in the ODI series in England last summer and it won’t be easy now. But they should both get through the group comfortably; the only question is who will carry forward the more points. I would expect the last spot in the Super Six to go to the West Indies. They actually have the most wins in ODIs in the last two years with 13 (though a worse W/L ratio than England and Australia) and should not have a problem finishing ahead of Sri Lanka. I would imagine they would finish third, but playing at home a year ago they did beat India 2-1 in a three match series, so might push for second.

Group B looks like the weaker of the two groups and should see Australia dominate. They are an excellent side and their biggest opposition is probably New Zealand – a side against whom they have had great success recently. Pakistan do have a winning record recently and are in relatively familiar conditions, but their preparation was badly disrupted and they have not done well against stronger opposition. South Africa are probably favourites to be knocked out of Group B (certainly they are according to the seeding), but they’ve competed a bit more recently and I think they can get through at Pakistan’s expense. I’d be surprised if either challenge even New Zealand though; the White Ferns are a better side than their record indicates. (Playing Australia and England all the time isn’t a recipe for a lot of wins.)

New Zealand, India, South Africa and the West Indies will all have uphill battles to challenge for a spot in the final though; realistically one of them will have to at the very least beat England or Australia and even then would have to win most of their other matches. New Zealand and India are probably the two most likely contenders, but I expect them to play each other for third place as England and Australia meet in another final. Australia have generally had the better of these encounters recently, including grabbing the T20 World Cup almost out from under England’s nose. The two teams will meet in the Super Six stage as well (which will be true of whichever two teams end up in the final) so there will be a chance to assess them head-to-head during the tournament and in these situations the winner is often the side who make the better adjustments. Right now though, I would say Australia are favourites against any opposition in the final. They are playing very well and have a lot of depth and my guess is a second close defeat in a final for England.

England’s IPL policy should be stricter

I was glad to see yesterday that Hugh Morris has said that England will not be relaxing their stance on centrally contracted players in the IPL in the contracts that will be awarded the September. I did not think that they would, but it is still good to know that they are not going to cut into the Test season to provide a ‘window’ or field an under-strength team just to benefit the money-grubbing BCCI.

I actually think they could do with a stricter policy and not let players join the IPL at all. The ones who aren’t playing already are rested instead of playing in the County Championship, why should that not apply to all of the centrally contracted players? (Better still, they could improve the County Championship by having all the centrally contracted players take part, but either way the current set up makes no sense.) There is always the argument that playing careers are short and players need to go for the money right now, but not only are England players pretty well compensated already there is nothing them stopping them from playing in the IPL after they retire. Indeed, ageing former Test stars seem to be the foundation for many of the T20 leagues around the world; just look at Shane Warne. Amongst the counties, Notts are already doing this with their contracted players and I suspect more will follow. If they lose out on the players then they aren’t really losing much since the players are missing so much of the Championship with the IPL anyway. Especially if England backed them up by not having the centrally contracted players in the IPL then I doubt this would be a problem for the counties.

There is no reason an England player should be missing any of the English season to play in a foreign tournament. If they must participate in a T20 festival there are some, like the Big Bash League which run during the English winter and there’s no reason not to participate in those. But if the IPL want to have England players (which they probably don’t; I don’t see why they would really care) then they can stage their season earlier so that it does not conflict with the County Championship and the Test summer.

Graham Thorpe new pyjama batting coach

England announced that they are increasing their dual-coaching set up by having Graham Gooch only coach the batting in Tests now as Graham Thorpe will be the ODI and T20 batting coach. I think that it is a good idea; Thorpe has been coaching the Lions and this makes sense. Batting in Tests is quite different to batting in pyjama matches and England’s sides do change between the formats so why should this not be true for the coaches as well? This also eases the workload on Gooch and I suspect before too long England will have a specialist pyjama bowling coach as well.

I don’t think Thorpe will have too much work to do with the ODI side; Gooch did quite a good job overall in his time, despite the results in India. England were very poor in most of that series, but if the suggestions that Gooch was effectively sacked because of that are true (and I’m not sure they are) then it is quite harsh. England’s batting was very good through most of 2012 and in fact their ability to consistently put up large (if not huge) totals and give their bowlers something with which to work was instrumental in their success in the format in last year. Thorpe mostly needs to keep them doing what they are doing and work toward preparing them for the next World Cup. He might have a bit more work to do with the T20 side, of course. England are so inconsistent in that format it is hard to know what needs to be done there.

He won’t have a lot of time to make any substantial changes before the series in New Zealand starts; the first T20 is in under a fortnight. Obviously England don’t have any meaningful ODIs on the horizon as those don’t really exist, but it will be interesting to see if England have a particularly different approach to the ODIs this summer against Australia this summer than last.

Final ODI selection

England finish their tour of India today/tomorrow with a dead rubber ODI. After winning the Test series in December the tour is unquestionably a success and down 1-3 in the ODI series there is really nothing for which to play in this last match. England can’t even really use it to prepare for the future; they don’t play another ODI in the subcontinent until November of 2014 when they go to Sri Lanka and there are no ODI tournaments in the subcontinent on the Future Tours Programme.

But that’s not to say that England have nothing to lose. Whilst they would no doubt like to win it is important that they not pick up any injuries. The Ashes are still some way off, but there are Tests in New Zealand beginning in just over a month and there is no need to risk someone missing out on those for the benefit of an ODI and especially a dead rubber.

England have done a good job of resting players for the series as a whole, but now with the series effectively over they should look at going a step further. Alastair Cook has played in every match except the T20s on the tour to India and he is due to lead the side against New Zealand just a few weeks after the end of this series. Although he is the captain, the last thing we need is for him to start feeling burnout and I’d like to see him rested. Steven Finn too ought to rest, especially after the injuries that kept him out of three of the Tests in India. Ian Bell can lead the side in Cook and Broad’s absence; he, Kevin Pietersen and Joe Root are the only two of the main Test side I would play. In Bell’s case, he is not in the T20 squad so will have a bit of a break before the ODIs start and unlike Cook has not had to deal with the day-to-day burden of captaincy. Pietersen will be rested for the pyjama portion of the New Zealand tour and whilst it would not be a terrible idea to rest him it isn’t necessary. Root also could be rested, but didn’t play in most of the matches on this tour so shouldn’t need to be.

It would leave a very weak side on the whole, but it doesn’t matter a jot if England lose the series 2-3 or 1-4. The Tests are won and what is important now are the Tests against New Zealand and Australia.

England squad for New Zealand announced

England released their 15-man squad for the tour of New Zealand today. It is, of course, different from the one I would have selected. But it’s still a strong one overall and England are clearly taking the Kiwis seriously, which is good. Failures in South Africa notwithstanding, they do pose a threat with their bowling and can pull off an upset.

The biggest aspect is that Tim Bresnan has been dropped in favour of Chris Woakes. Apparently Bresnan is going to have more work done on his elbow; it’s clearly not been right since he had surgery on it a year ago. I had him in my squad of 15, but if there is something that actually can be done for his elbow then I’m glad they are trying that instead. I’m not entirely sold on replacing him with Woakes though. Woakes is talented, but I think a bit too much is made of his all-rounder tag. I view him as a bowler who can bat; he tends to come in well down the order for Warwickshire and he has a first-class batting average under forty. It does make him a bit of a like-for-like replacement for Bresnan and he’s certainly a good bowler, but I don’t think he’s better than Stuart Meaker as a bowler and that is who I would have picked after Bresnan. I don’t think batting ability should come into it unless a player is so good with the bat that he could be picked on it alone. For Woakes this clearly isn’t the case so it should only be a matter of who is the better bowler and I think it’s Meaker.

Eoin Morgan and Samit Patel have both dropped out as expected, but it hasn’t opened the door for James Taylor as I would have liked. Taylor will be captaining the England Lions instead, but I think he can count himself horribly unlucky. He did little wrong against South Africa; he had one good innings and one bad innings before being run out by Matt Prior at Lord’s. But he was left out of the tour to India behind Morgan (inexplicably) and to accommodate the horses-for-courses selection of Samit Patel. Now that they are both out Taylor should be back in the frame, but instead he seems to have been all-but-forgot with Jonny Bairstow and Joe Root ahead of him.

The squad that is selected is a strong one overall and it doesn’t leave much doubt about the likely XI. Unless there is another injury before the series starts (and I’m not delighted with England risking Broad in the one day series ahead of the Tests) the only real battle should be for the number six spot and it looks like Root will go into it as the strong favourite. We’ll know for sure in just over a month.

Suggested England Test squad

Tomorrow England will announce their touring party for the three Tests in New Zealand in March. I don’t think there will be any great surprises, but I am keen to see how they decide to pick players on the first tour to more English conditions after the loss to South Africa last summer. As I mentioned a few days ago, Nick Compton ought to retain his spot in the playing XI and although Joe Root will certainly be on the plane I would play him either at six or not at all. It’s also already been confirmed that it will be a 15-man squad with Jonny Bairstow as reserve wicket-keeper.

It is the question of who to bat at six which I think will dominate the squad discussions and lone warmup, though now at least it is because England have many good options instead of none. But they still have both Root and Bairstow and neither have done anything to be dropped and really neither has James Taylor. England seemed to forget about him when naming the side to tour India and I’d like to see him recalled for the series in New Zealand. Samit Patel will presumably be missing out after his poor performance in India and Eoin Morgan should definitely be dropped as well, but with the squad size being cut overall I think Taylor may still miss out. I would have him on the plane though, as injury cover if nothing else. The selectors need to keep him in the picture though even if he does miss out; I thought he looked perfectly capable in the two Tests against South Africa that he played and I think that if England had gone to New Zealand before India he would be in the squad.

The bowling can’t be completely ignored though. There is still the nagging doubts about Stuart Broad’s fitness after his latest injury kept him out of the ODIs in India. He’ll be in the squad, of course, but England should have a plan in place in case he gets injured again. It’s tempting to want to add another bowler as cover (Stuart Meaker the likely candidate), but England do have four other fast bowlers who can expect to be on the plane which should be enough and possibly even more than enough. I would drop Panesar from the squad though as spin is unlikely to play a major role and Root and Kevin Pietersen should be all England need to support Swann. I would either just leave his spot empty (the squad is being cut by three players compared to the India one) or replace him with a batsman.

My squad in full would then be:
Cook*, Anderson, Bairstow, Bell, Bresnan, Broad, Compton, Finn, Onions, Pietersen, Prior, Root, Swann, Taylor, Trott