Peter Moores has rejected the accusation that late changes to England’s ODI strategy contributed to the team’s nervous show in their opening game of the World Cup against Australia
George Dobell in Melbourne15-Feb-2015Peter Moores has rejected the accusation that late changes to England’s ODI strategy contributed to the team’s nervous show in their opening game of the World Cup against Australia.But while Moores denied any “panic”, he accepted that big-match nerves may have affected some players and admitted that England “didn’t deliver” at key stages of the game. In particular, Moores said the bowlers failed to deliver enough yorkers and agreed the team had “to move and move fast” if they were going to challenge in the tournament.Australia won by 111 runs at the MCG, with England missing two chances in the opening five overs – including centurion Aaron Finch before he had scored – and conceding 102 runs from the final nine overs of the innings. In reply, they limped to 92 for 6 before James Taylor provided some consolation with an unbeaten innings of 98.The game featured some significant changes to England’s recent ODI template. Chris Woakes, who had opened the bowling in the previous 13 ODIs and took a five-wicket haul (including two wickets in the first over) in his last warm-up game, was demoted to first change, while Taylor, who had batted at No. 3 since returning to the team on the Sri Lanka tour, was moved to No. 6. Gary Ballance replaced Ravi Bopara in the side and, having not played a List A game since September, batted at No. 3.”There was no panic,” Moores, England’s head coach, said. “I can categorically say, no, players were not unsettled by changes. It’s a red herring. We weren’t unsettled.”You don’t drop a catch at square leg because you think you think you should be opening the bowling. That wasn’t the case … Chris Woakes and Stuart Broad will both tell you they can do either role: bowl with the new ball or come on later.”We asked James Taylor to go into the middle order. He’s played there a lot. He feels he’s very strong there because of his adaptability. He likes the role. And it was the first time Gary had been available for selection a month. He’s had a broken finger. He played in the practice game and played very well. He looked in good form, he looked good in practice and he did his fielding. We felt he was ready. It gave us a nice balance to have him at No. 3.”When we announced the Sri Lanka squad, I said the one bloke who we weren’t taking which was most frustrating was Gary Ballance. That is on record. He’s an outstanding cricketer.”‘Morgan quality will come through’
Peter Moores said that Eoin Morgan, England’s captain, was “as frustrated as everybody” about his run of poor form. But Moores denied that Morgan’s slump was similar to that of Alastair Cook, who lost the captaincy weeks before the start of the World Cup.
“It’s not the same as the Alastair Cook situation,” Moores said. “For Alastair it was over time. For Eoin, you’re going back less than a month since he scored a brilliant hundred at Sydney.
“But he handles himself well. He’s practising and doing everything in the right way. He has played a long time. So, this is a case for support. He had to back himself, get out there and trust that his form will come back and his quality will come through.”
Of England’s decision to drop Ravi Bopara for their opening World Cup match, Moores said it had been a very close call.
“He’s a really good player, but he’s not quite playing as well as he’d like. We wanted some more stability in the middle with the bat – we thought Taylor would give us that – and we’ve seen Ballance playing well and think he has Test quality. It was a paper-thin decision.”
Moores did accept, though, that nerves may have played a part in England’s modest performance. “To be under pressure in front of a big crowd…. that happens,” he said. “And sometimes people make mistakes.”The players have to ask: did we play the game, and the style and brand of game, we wanted to and if we didn’t, we have to look at how we’re going to do that going through the tournament.”Each individual has to look at himself and ask: did he get the best out of himself? We know it’s a tough place to play – big crowd, big occasion, the opening of the World Cup – but all players went in knowing that.”We didn’t go in saying ‘It’s just another game’ at all. We knew it was a special occasion. It was going to have a level of pressure that, for some players, was different and you have to respond to that.”They’ve been through it now and they’ve been through it early. If people didn’t feel they got the best of themselves, they have to look at how they do next time. Because to win things and do well you actually want to get into pressure games. By the end of these tournaments, they’re all pressure games.”England’s death bowling was especially – though somewhat predictably – modest and Moores accepted that mistakes had been made.”We didn’t do ourselves justice,” Moores said. “The disappointing thing from the day is that we had an opportunity to put a marker down of how we were going to play and we didn’t do that.”Have we under-used the yorker? Yes. We have under-used it. But it wasn’t just about execution in this game. Our plans weren’t as good as they could have been.”England were criticised for dropping short, which was apparently intended to make Australia’s batsmen try to hit square of the wicket, but Moores said the choice of delivery was less important than making sure the correct field was set for it.”I think, in this game, the players were sucked into the width of the wide boundaries and felt that was the best option,” he said. “You have to set the right fields for that and we didn’t always get the right fields. So we have to go away, look at that and decide what we are going to do. We have to move and we have to move fast because these games are going to keep coming and the last 10 to 15 overs aren’t going to go away. There’s no point hiding from it. Those situations are going to come again and again.”The yorker is a really good ball. But you you’ve got to bowl the right ball to the right field. If you look at the stats for the best in world cricket, they don’t just bowl yorkers. They bowl to simple plans.”Mitchell Starc is a yorker bowler, but some are not and they bowl a heavy length with slower balls. You have to go to your strengths. So we have certain bowlers who lend themselves to going full with yorkers; others won’t use it quite as much.”The key for whoever bowls at that time is to be clear and committed in what they’re trying to do. And then bowl to their field. It’s a tough thing. There are only four men out, rather than five, so that’s harder … And wickets are always king. If you don’t get wickets then you’re going to be put under pressure at some stage.”We can’t hide from our own problems. We’ve got to get better. We’ve improved as a fielding side, we were disappointing here. And at the death we didn’t get it as well as we have. There are areas where we didn’t deliver.”England flew from Melbourne to Wellington on Sunday night and play their second match, against New Zealand, on Friday.