Y Failure?

As England slump to yet another embarrassing T20 series loss, it's hard to avoid looking at the habitual and underlying issues which lead to their constant failure.

It's an easy out to say 'none of our players play in the IPL!'. No, but our top 3 of Lumb, Hales and Wright all recently played in the Big Bash, and did fairly well. We also won the World T20 cup four years ago despite only having one player in the squad playing in an overseas competitions (who has since been banished from the team #BringBackKP).

I believe the real problem is one of culture. Our players are told to 'express themselves' and 'play your natural game', but only if that means doing well - fail and you're out. A recent example of this is Ben Stokes. One of the brightest talents in English cricket plays one (admittedly awful) shot, and is dropped the next game so that Luke Wright could bat lower down the order, having scored 1, 0, 0 and 7* thus far in the Caribbean.

The call-up of Ian Bell further exemplifies this notion that England would rather have someone unsuitable to a position play and fail 'well', than someone who will try something different. He is obviously a wonderful player, but is he really going to score you a 25-ball 50 like a Kevin Pietersen might? Probably not, but he won't get caught at deep mid-wicket, so in he comes.

Dwayne Smith's innings in Barbados for me truly highlighted the contrast between the two sides. His knock included a six over third man from a wild slash, and another maximum from a filthy slog, dragging a ball from outside off over long-on. But his 30 off 16 balls set up the game for West Indies to cruise home, with the adage of 'they're all the same in the scorebook' ringing around the stadium. Could and will Smith get out in the first over playing like that? Sure. But is it not worth the gamble, to have even one player just throw the bat and see what happens?

Jos Butler and Eoin Morgan are constantly being praised for their innovation and ingenuity, and that is because they don't let failure put them off. Butler was bowled three time against Pakistan trying to play the flip shot, and yet he still plays it most games because he knows the benefits of it outweigh the possibility of it not working. Morgan is the same; he got out today playing the sweep, but you can put your house on him trying the shot again.

It's time England genuinely embrace 20-over cricket for the exhibition that it is, and allow players to not be afraid to fail. Because frankly, they are doing that anyway - they could at least entertain us in the process.