Loye takes England into 21st century

January 22, 2007 by Sid The Hat

'Chairman Mal' at 34 years of age, will in all probability not have the longest England career but he could turn out to be one of the pivotal players in our ODI history.

Though with my pic here I may come across as a traditional chap, I have been frustrated beyond belief at England's unwillingness to adapt to the modern way 50-over cricket is played.

Even in this series England have talked about openers making a base or setting their stall out - good advice for cakemakers or market traders but not international one day cricket.

The geniuses in the England side talk about the lack of turning 50s into 100s. But this just in...if you're scoring at a strike rate of 60, you're as well not being there to reach three figures. Similarly an average of 20 at a run a ball at the top of the innings is better than one of 35 at 60%.

By only making 40-50 runs from their first 20 overs England have been so far behind the par run rate that victory is nigh on impossible when they face top class ODI opposition.

We have seen with Australia that if the openers get out early then plan b does have to come into effect and you have to aim for a total around the 250 mark. It seems England just went for plan b, believing 'a' was beyond them - and this alone means they will lose 90% of games against good opposition (as they have in the last two years).

With over 21,000 runs in all forms of the game, Loye is a decent county batsmen, but his performances in the one-day game for the last few years (first class average 35, Twenty20: 28 at 144 sr) showed he was exactly what England needed - a player who can hit up and over the infield in the first twenty overs.

His run a ball 36 (including a swept six off Lee) in his first inning may not have led to an England win but it got Australia out of the comfort zone for the first time in this CB Series.

It goes without saying he must remain there even if Virgil Vaughan comes back from injury next week even at the expense of Strauss. With Vaughan's ability to pull, England could just have a one-two punch capable of hurting opposition early on.

In the fairly likely event of Vaughan being dogged by injuries all the way leading up to the World Cup, I'd like to see Collingwood or Flintoff given a go opening with him - they are far more likely to win games from there than 5 or 6.

There will be no swing in the Caribbean so the danger of getting out early is not so prevalent, and the possibility of winning after a slow start pretty negligible.

Still we should be grateful for small moves in the right direction, which Loye certainly represents. For maybe the first time since Beefy in 1992 (when we got to the World Cup final) we have someone who can take games away from sides if he gets in at the top of the innings.

At the very least he makes us competitive. With Australia's superior bowling and incredible fielding, it remains very unlikely that they will be beaten in this series, but after two months of easy thrashings you get the feeling that they are enjoying being challenged in the last two ODIs.

It seems too late for England to find their game in time for this World Cup, but they would do well to start building for the following tournament with Surrey's James Benning at the top of the order, someone who learned under the other master blaster of this form of the game in England - Ali Brown.

And from that point onwards, all England test players should be made to play as much county Twenty20 cricket as possible to build their array of strokes and confidence bowling at free scoring batsmen.

Then maybe one day we will be able to compete at this form of the game. The Chairman is likely to be long gone by then, but he will have set the prototype of what England require from an opening batsman.
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