Tuesday, January 27, 2015

ICC Cricket World Cup 2015, Team Review - England

England Squad for the ICC Cricket World Cup 2015: Eoin Morgan (capt), Moeen Ali, James Anderson, Gary Ballance, Ian Bell, Ravi Bopara, Stuart Broad, Jos Buttler, Steven Finn, Alex Hales, Chris Jordan, Joe Root, James Taylor, James Tredwell, Chris Woakes

Batting -

Strengths

With Cook no longer a part of the England ODI set-up, this English line up looks pretty solid to me. The dynamic Moeen Ali will have the classy Bell or the explosive Alex Hales for company at the top of the order. Morgan, Buttler, Taylor and Bopara provide plenty of fire power lower down the order as well! They have Joe Root as well who can play according to the situation, defend or attack as the need arises.

Weakness

The squad is pretty inexperienced with only Bell and Bopara having played in a World Cup before. Playing in high pressure games back to back can take its toll on young players who are susceptible to crack.

Rating - 7.5/10

Bowling - 

Strengths

The return of Anderson, Broad and Finn adds sting and venom to the English bowling. If the conditions are ripe then these three will probably make run making as difficult as any other bowling attack. James Tredwell is the steady spin operator who generally keeps it tight during the middle overs.

Weakness

All the three bowlers, Anderson, Broad and Finn are just returning from injuries and bad form, so how they go in the World Cup remains to be seen. Also the back up bowlers in Jordan and Woakes can leak a lot of runs.

Rating - 7.5/10

Fielding - 

Strengths

England are generally a very good fielding side. Though they are not exceptional but they do get the job done rather nicely. Root, Taylor, Morgan, Jordan are all supremely fit and very athletic.

Weakness

The Wicket-Keeping of Jos Buttler might prove to be a weak point as I have seen him drop catches or scupper simple stumping chances often.

Rating - 7.5/10

Overall Summary

England will hope that the dropping of Cook will finally bring them some success in the shorter format of the game. They do have a pretty dynamic squad with no major injury concerns at the moment, so they must be hoping to finally win the ODI Cricket World Cup.

Rating - 7.5/10

Given Below are the other Team Reviews that I have done

Australia
Bangladesh
India
New Zealand
Pakistan
South Africa
Sri Lanka
West Indies

5 comments:

Vinay Leo R. said...

Batting I agree, bowling you've overrated them :P 7.5 is too much. 6.5, maybe 7 tops. Fielding you've underrated them. Buttler is decent. so 8 would be better I feel.

veturisarma said...

I don't think England might go beyond QFs

DS said...

@ Vinay

I feel that their bowling attack is decent enough with Anderson, Broad and Finn. With Moeen Ali, Bopara and Woakes as support cast, they deserve at least 7.5!

DS said...

@ Narsimha

I also feel the same, though a lot of luck also comes in once the knock out stages start.

AUS said...

well they certainly didn't win it or even get past the group stages pretty shocking performance