Champions Trophy final: England let themselves down... again!

There will be all manner of frustration and regret in the England camp after they came so close, again, to a major 50-over title before tripping over the final hurdle. It’s happened before in finals at this level – too many times. The World Cup final of 1979 was the first taste of the big time – and Viv Richards blew them away. Then they were well positioned against Australia in 1987 when Mike Gatting was out attempting a reverse sweep. A third World Cup final came in 1992 but no team was going to stand in the way of Imran Khan’s irresistible “cornered tigers”. The shorter format of the Champions Trophy might have provided some solace after that triple heartache, but the two they’ve staged on home soil have proved even more agonising in the final analysis. First they were stymied by the remarkable late-wicket stand of West Indies pair Courtney Browne and Ian Bradshaw on a freezing cold day at The Oval in 2004, and now, following a day full of rain at Edgbaston, a loose shot by Eoin Morgan with a run chase apparently at England’s mercy precipitated a grim collapse over the final two and a half overs. Many will say MS Dhoni was the genius captain who psychologically outwitted England, but I can’t really buy that. Dhoni’s choice of Ishant Sharma to bowl the 18th over was cavalier. On the other hand, as gambles go, it was certainly one that paid off - even after Sharma’s second ball was despatched for six and the next two were wides. This was the point that everything looked very comfortable indeed for the home side. With 20 needed off 16 balls, Morgan and Ravi Bopara appeared to have turned an awkward chase into one that looked impossible to fluff; instead England imploded. With a field set for bouncers, Morgan knew the next ball was likely to be short. He only had to time his pull over midwicket, but he was early on the shot and picked out the fielder. [caption id=“attachment_899797” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Cook, Trott and Morgan after the finals. AP[/caption] Next ball, Bopara got a quicker, straighter bouncer. If he’d left it, it might have been called a wide on grounds of height; instead he played the shot, and slapped it to square leg. England were no longer favourites to win, but they still might have had a shout if Tim Bresnan hadn’t batted like a startled rabbit and if Jos Buttler hadn’t tried to hit his very first ball out of the Birmingham city limits. England had won a good toss and restricted India to 129-7, their opponents suffering the inconvenience of having to come off and on at various intervals, disrupting their rhythm as the rain simply refused to go away. But the initial stages of England’s reply did not smack of confidence. Alastair Cook looked uncertain from the very beginning, Ian Bell failed to put away two or three bad balls and then got stumped, and Joe Root – perhaps for the first time in his international career – looked out of his depth. In their 64-run stand, Morgan and Bopara were almost too slow to being with, unsettled by the lavish turn and bounce that Ravindra Jadeja – looking eerily like a young Ravi Shastri with that moustache – and Ravichandran Ashwin were extracting. But once they started to gauge conditions and hit sixes late on, it appeared surely England’s wait for one of these trophies had ended. Alas, it was not to be. Nothing went according to the script in this final. Certainly, the weather clearly had a big impact but if India were going to win the game it was not to be expected that their bowlers would get their batsmen out of trouble. In essence, that’s precisely what did happen, and why England may well have to re-think their batting strategy for the 2015 World Cup. The bowling attack is in exceptionally strong fettle at the moment, but it’s been apparent for some time that the batting needs a much more dynamic approach up front. Even if they had won the final, it would have been in spite of their cautious top-order batting, not because of it. India have done exceptionally well of late, of course, and their team was an exciting one who thrilled the UK-based fans who turned up in their thousands to see them, winning all five of their games, plus both warm-ups. But if ever there was a chance for England to win an ICC 50-over final, this was it. And, I’m sorry to say, they let themselves down.