London [UK], June 6 (ANI): Former England spinner Graeme Swann, a member of the team’s maiden ICC T20 World Cup title-winning team back in 2010, said that he sees a lot of parallels between the current 2024 squad and the players from that memorable title win 14 years back, which marked England’s first white-ball title win.
In the final of T20 World Cup 2010 at Barbados, England secured a seven-wicket win over arch-rivals Australia to win the title. Swann was the joint-leading wicket-taker of that team, with 10 scalps in the tournament. The off-spinner sees a lot of similarities between the 2010 and 2024 squad, especially the top-order.
“I am excited because I see so many parallels between this team and our team [from 2010]. The ultra-aggressive top-order is the only way to play,” said Swann as quoted by ESPNCricinfo.
“I think if you get the two ends of the spectrum right – the first six overs with the ball, the first six overs with the bat–you win more often than not. We have got world-class spinners to bowl in the middle period. I think we cover all bases. And if we believe in ourselves and play in a very aggressive manner, we can win it,” he added.
That aggression back in 2010 was an anomaly, given how the winning eleven came together. During the pre-tournament camp in Abu Dhabi, the first playing XI of England lost to England Lions by five wickets, as young openers Michael Lumb (55 off 35) and Craig Kieswetter (81 not out off 66) chased down the target of 158 runs put on by senior stars of England.
Seeing the batting exploits of these two hard-hitters, then head coach Andy Flower decided to put Lumb and Kieswetter at the top of the order in place of Jonathan Trott and Joe Denly. Lumb, Kieswetter and Pietersen (the Player of the Tournament with 248 runs) gave England a dominant top order.
Swann said that the T20 World Cup team came together by accident, recalling, “The one-day team used to get picked by ‘if you were good at Test match cricket, you got a gig in the one-dayers’.”
“We played a warm-up game before in Abu Dhabi, and Lumb and Kieswetter smashed us all over the place. And Andy Flower saw our batting compared to theirs and said, ‘why do not we just have those in our team?’ He got them in, and it was the best move ever. So thank you to South African schools cricket for giving us the best top three in the world at the time and won us the World Cup!,” he added.
Swann, however, regrets that England’s sucess in that tournament came in isolation and remained their only big title win until the England secured their maiden ICC Cricket World Cup title at home in 2019 and followed it with a second T20 World Cup title win in 2022 at Australia.
The spinner said that the team did not learn from their 2010 WC triumph and forgot to continue being progressive and attacking and instead opted for more conservative players who were better suited to Test cricket. However, he credited former England captain Eoin Morgan, who won the WC for the Three Lions in 2019, for bringing up the change.
“We did not learn from that T20 World Cup. I think that’s the biggest mistake we made as a nation–not realising how we won that World Cup by being the most progressive and attacking team. In the 50-over cricket, we stuck with formulas and only tried to get 234 to win 86 percent of games and whatever, and picked Test batsmen to get slow hundreds rather than, say, Jason Roy. We did not move on as quickly as we should have. We saw the change when Eoin Morgan was in charge, it was phenomenal,” he said.
Swann said that England needs to play the same attacking game that they used to play under Morgan, noting that they were “timid” during their 50-over World Cup title defence back in 2023, winning just three matches out of nine and finishing at seventh spot.
“I think we need to get back to how it was under Morgy at first. Because in the last World Cup, I thought we were very timid. We did not look to dominate games, there was very much a protect your wicket before you take a risky option [attitude], and it was never ‘take the aggressive option’ as we have seen in Bazball and Test cricket. I think that is the way to win a T20 World Cup,” said Swann.
Jos Buttler, the current white-ball captain, is at a crucial juncture of his career. At the age of 33, he is perhaps the best white-ball cricketer ever produced by England, but his leadership in 50-over World Cup has put a dent on his legacy, even though he won the T20 World Cup while growing as a leader of an England side moving forward from a retired Morgan.
Regaining that liberation has been high on the agenda for Jos Buttler and head coach Matthew Mott. A line has clearly been drawn under the events of last winter.
Buttler himself is at an intriguing juncture in his career. At the age of 33, he is undoubtedly the greatest limited-overs cricketer England has produced, yet captaincy has muddied the waters somewhat.
Buttler now has a chance to join the West Indies’ Darren Sammy as the only captain to have won two T20 World Cup titles. Swann feels that such a feat will uplift Buttler’s status as an all-time great of the sport.
“You could say that, yeah,” Swann on if this was a legacy-defining tournament for Buttler.
“You would start arguing that he is no spring chicken anymore, which sounds so weird for me to say, that Jos Buttler is coming into the back-end of his career, because I am sure he will carry on playing in the IPL until he is crawling out to the middle, because he is getting paid so handsomely.”
“He needs to win as a captain in this, just to keep himself satisfied and happy that he is the right man going forward. I hope to still see him [play for England] for a few years because I watched him in the IPL and he is a joke. He is still brilliant and still so dominant.”
“As a player, he is phenomenal. You only need to look at his results and the fact that he plays white-ball cricket now, and no one bats an eyelid. When he played Test cricket, he was one of the keenest people to play Test cricket. People do not get that about Jos. But he loved red-ball cricket, and he adapted his game to do a job for England. But in white-ball cricket,, he is undoubtedly one of the best in the world.”
“Whether, as a captain, he is one of the best in the world, only time will tell. He had a very difficult act to follow in Eoin Morgan, who is the best one-day captain we have ever had. To totally change the mindset and outlook of the team to win that (2019) World Cup, it is one of the greatest management efforts I have ever seen. This England team, if they are aggressive enough, they can win the tournament for Jos,” he concluded.
England started their T20 WC against Scotland, but the match ended in a washout due to rain. Their next game is against arch-rivals Australia on June 8 at Barbados. (ANI)
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