by 
England’s glorious period of white-ball cricket from 2016 to 2022 was underpinned by stellar batting. But for all the attention paid to the players at the top of the ladder, there was also a threat from below.
In November 2022, England won the T20 World Cup final at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, winning by five wickets with one over to play. Given the stakes, it seemed an uphill battle. Yet England did not even need Sam Curran, Chris Woakes or Chris Jordan – remarkably ranked at No.10 – to bat.
As they headed for a 28-run defeat in the series opener against Australia, a regenerated England team had lost its identity. Curran – number eight on that heady night in Melbourne – batted at six. Either side of him, debutants Jacob Bethell and Jamie Overton both felt too high. At number eight, so did Jofra Archer.
Rather than the 2022 T20 World Cup, England’s line-up was reminiscent of this year’s ill-fated campaign. In the T20 World Cup semi-final in Guyana in June, England had selected Moeen Ali, Sam Curran and Liam Livingstone: three all-rounders in the top seven. The line-up gave Jos Buttler plenty of bowling options, although Moeen was curiously not used on a turning track. But it came at a price. England regretted their decision not to select an additional batsman, Ben Duckett, as they had discussed before the match.
T20 is a game of resource maximisation. A team’s most important resource is its 120 balls at bat. But its chances of maximising those deliveries depend on the balance of the team it selects. The biggest mistake a team can make in selection is to pick players partly for their bowling ability – and then not use their overs. This weakens a team’s batting ability, with no gain in terms of bowling.
But the reverse is not true. Batsmen who don’t face the ball still strengthen a team’s batting, not by what they do, but by how they free up the men above them to attack with more gusto. In the 2022 T20 World Cup final, for example, Jos Buttler’s Powerplay attack (including an impudent scoop for six off Naseem Shah) ensured that the run rate was always manageable.
A deep batting line-up encourages such early risk-taking. Knowing the quality of the upcoming batters “gives every person who comes in at any given time the ability to really take the game at any time,” Alex Hales, England’s opener at the 2022 T20 World Cup, said in the book White Hot. “When you’ve got 11 guys with that ability, if one or two of you get out, you win the game. That was always the way we thought.”
This depth has been shown to impact the way teams bat. When top-order batsmen have the leeway of a utility player coming in at number eight, they attack around 20 per cent more deliveries, according to a CricViz study.
Even within England’s weak batting line-up in the first Twenty20, there were oddities. Sam Curran batted at number six in Southampton. That position did not take into account the fact that, in all T20 cricket matches since the start of 2023, Curran has averaged 28.5 when batting in the top five – but only 13.1 when batting at number six or lower.
Curran’s dismal T20 batting record for England – an average of 13.2 – partly reflects the fact that he has been misplaced. If he is to have a long-term international future in T20s, the most likely path for Curran is to bat in the top five as an aggressive spin hitter and bowl only when conditions are right. In his only innings for England as a four-year-old, in the Caribbean last year, Curran hit 50 from 32 deliveries, and could even be promoted there to end the right-handers’ streak.
Bethell also looked misused on Wednesday night, walking off the field early in the seventh over. At this stage of his career, he seems best placed to play six, as a finisher, replicating his role in the T20 Blast and Hundred.
While the balance of the England team is uncertain, the selectors can nevertheless be lenient. The schedule has prevented England from selecting the best possible team. The composition of the England team reflected their desire to test players in competition with each other for a place in their first-choice team. Curran, Bethell, Livingstone and Jamie Overton have all played, although England are unlikely to field more than two of the four players when they are at full strength.
A more balanced team would have included at least James Vince and Tom Banton as additional top-order batsmen. Yet no matter how well that duo performs, they are unlikely to force their way into the team at full strength. The unavailable trio of Jos Buttler, Harry Brook and Jamie Smith – all of whom could be considered part of England’s first-choice squad, even if Smith is uncapped – would all rank in the top five. Duckett could also challenge for a T20 spot; Ben Stokes could even return to the T20 squad.
With the 2026 T20 World Cup in mind, England must first decide which all-rounders they want and how to deploy them. Southampton’s squad has adopted this priority, but at the expense of deploying players in the roles they could play for England at full strength.
The balance has sacrificed the team’s current needs for those of the future. In theory, that is exactly what bilateral series are for. Yet there is a growing feeling that after two difficult years in white-ball cricket, England would be better served by picking a team that will win now.
