England have spent the best part of a decade at the forefront of limited-overs cricket.
After their humiliating early exit from the 2015 World Cup, playing like a team in the wrong era, captain Eoin Morgan instilled a bold, unswerving approach that stipulated non-negotiable attacking play.
Results were immediate and sustained as England reached the final of the 2017 T20 World Cup, won an away ODI series in Australia and claimed the 2019 World Cup on home soil in unforgettable fashion.
Morgan announced his retirement somewhat abruptly in July 2022, leaving new captain Jos Buttler and recently installed coach Matthew Mott just three months to prepare for the T20 World Cup in Australia.
It turned out there was no need to worry as England demolished India by 10 wickets in the semifinals before holding their nerve to beat Pakistan and lift a second global trophy in three years.
MORE: England vs Afghanistan: Holders suffer shock 69-run defeat
As such, hopes were high for the reigning champions heading to India. But two defeats from their opening three games — a chastening thrashing at the hands of New Zealand and a historic reverse against Afghanistan to rank alongside Ireland 2011 and Bangladesh 2015 in England's World Cup hall of infamy — have felt like a return to the bad old days.
So, what's gone wrong? Is England's World Cup defence irreparably doomed, or do they have a chance of salvaging it over the course of three crunch games in eight days against South Africa, Sri Lanka and hosts India?
What's wrong with the England cricket team?
Put very simply, in their two defeats, England batted timidly and bowled poorly. Do that in tandem and you'll not win too many cricket matches.
"The two things that we're probably missing is the confidence — that confidence, puff your chest out, go out there and really take the game on, which this team has been renowned for over a long period of time," Mott told reporters this week
"You don't lose your ability overnight but you can lose your confidence. So, that's really important.
"And then it's just our general attitude, our ability to do the little things — bowl in those partnerships when we're bleeding from one end — and then with the bat just being a little bit braver.
"We pride ourselves on putting the opposition under pressure, and on reflection, we've been the reactive team in those two games, so we need to turn that around really quickly."
Mott also pledged that he would not make "wholesale changes" as several players face questions over their positions in the side. However, some would argue that such changes might be overdue.
MORE: Matthew Mott: The coach bringing fearlessness factor to England's overhaul
Were England complacent for the Cricket World Cup?
Accusations of complacency are easily thrown at once successful teams who stop succeeding, not to mention sports teams from the UK who fail to live up to hype/expectation/entitlement from their public.
So this England team were bound to be told they had rested on their laurels after the Afghanistan debacle, but it feels like a simplistic diagnosis. Joe Root, Buttler and the yet-to-return Ben Stokes are champion cricketers of the highest order. Adil Rashid has been one of the world's most consistent white-ball spin bowlers for the past decade and Chris Woakes is not far removed from some career-defining performances in the Ashes.
All of those five, along with Jonny Bairstow and Mark Wood, played in the 2019 World Cup final, when Moeen Ali — then as now — was one of the players in reserve. Among those eight fine servants to English cricket, Stokes is the youngest at 32. He might not feel it at the moment as he grapples with knee and hip pain.
While it has arguably not changed enough in terms of introducing young blood, the changes that have been made to England's 2019 vintage have all arguably chipped away at the authority and "puff your chest out" style that Mott mentioned.
Dawid Malan is a relative newcomer among contemporaries at the age of 36 and a prolific return of six ODI centuries inside the past 18 months simply demanded his inclusion ahead of Jason Roy, a stalwart of the Morgan era who was yielding diminishing returns.
However, while Malan is no slouch, scoring at a strike rate of 97.93 over the course of his career, England are without the dynamic dual assault that Bairstow and Roy often used at their best to swiftly beat opponents into submission.
Harry Brook and spin-bowling all-rounder Liam Livingstone each pack enough boundary-clearing power that the late-career version of Morgan the batsman is not overly missed. However, his rare leadership qualities do leave a void that the more understated Buttler must fill. Test captain Stokes, who Mott labelled as England's "spiritual leader" being back in the dressing room is a plus.
If the perplexing decision to bowl first against Afghanistan and field a seamer-heavy attack on a low, spinning pitch rested squarely on Buttler's shoulders, he does not have the arsenal in the field that Morgan enjoyed.
Jofra Archer's injury nightmare has been awful to see unfold, with the sense that a generational talent might have slipped away for good. Wood has to be nursed from one series to the next and England's other speedsters, Olly Stone and Saqib Mahmood, have endured lengthy and sapping periods in the treatment room.
However, the biggest hole in the 2019 team might have been left by Liam Plunkett. The hulking former Durham and Yorkshire paceman was England's middle-overs enforcer, never going for many runs and picking up handy wickets.
Sam Curran was a star of the T20 World Cup triumph but has come up woefully short when trying to fulfil this brief in India. It should be said that as a skiddy left-arm swing bowler, he is a very different proposition to Plunkett. Reece Topley and David Willey also being in the squad as left-arm swing bowlers makes it look like the selectors have taken some easy decisions and are now paying for a lack of variety.
MORE: All you need to know about England's huge World Cup match against South Africa
Do England play enough 50-over cricket?
Surrey fast bowler Gus Atkinson has been tipped to come into the side to face South Africa and the 25-year-old could certainly add some of the bite England's attack has lacked without Archer and Plunkett.
However, Atkinson's very presence in India points to an area where English cricket has got itself in a bit of a mess. Prior to his inclusion in the World Cup squad, the paceman had played two List A games.
It means one of the men charged with saving England's World Cup campaign is still learning the format. The same goes for Brook, who top-scored with a fine 66 against Afghanistan.
Atkinson shot to prominence with eye-catching performances in The Hundred, English cricket's divisive 100-balls-per-inning franchise competition that launched in 2021 after a 12-month delay due to the coronavirus pandemic.
There were complaints this year over the Ashes being packed into a condensed period from mid-June to late July in order to make way for the Hundred's August jamboree. But the competition's most significant impact on English cricket has been the One Day Cup effectively becoming a second XI competition.
It means there is no elite-level 50-over event in English domestic cricket.
The impact of this can be overstated. It's not as if the likes of Bairstow and Buttler would have been getting their white-ball eyes in for Yorkshire and Lancashire too often, given the packed international schedule.
On the other hand, it's much harder to assess the capabilities of the next generation and any new selections become even more of a punt than usual, doing plenty to explain the lack of player turnover from 2019. Can Brook and Atkinson be brilliant 50-over players? Dunno, we think so! Can Curran bowl the middle overs in an ODI? No idea, but he's great at T20!
Did England prepare well for the Cricket World Cup?
The lack of a premier domestic 50-over competition would matter less if England's best ODI players were getting loads of international cricket under their belts in the format.
Yet, as this table of ODIs played by all countries at the 2023 World Cup since the previous tournament shows, that's not really the case.
ODI matches played by 2023 World Cup teams since 2019
| Team | 2019 (post WC) |
2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 (pre WC) |
TOTAL |
| Afghanistan | 3 | — | 3 | 12 | 11 | 29 |
| Australia | — | 13 | 3 | 17 | 12 | 45 |
| Bangladesh | 3 | 3 | 12 | 15 | 20 | 53 |
| England | — | 9 | 9 | 12 | 12 | 42 |
| India | 6 | 9 | 6 | 24 | 21 | 66 |
| Netherlands | — | — | 6 | 15 | 13 | 34 |
| New Zealand | — | 4 | 3 | 16 | 20 | 56 |
| Pakistan | 2 | 3 | 6 | 9 | 16 | 36 |
| South Africa | — | 6 | 10 | 12 | 12 | 40 |
| Sri Lanka | 5 | 3 | 15 | 11 | 22 | 56 |
Unsurprisingly, India have been by far the busiest ODI national. Preparing for a successful home World Cup has been a priority for the BCCI, plus Indian players being contracted to IPL franchises and not playing in any overseas leagues vastly simplifies the process when it comes to scheduling internationals and knowing the best players will be available.
England come in further down the pack, although it is telling that Australia have only played three more ODIs during a period containing three Ashes series. No other nations have such a heavy and high-intensity Test-match load. Consider there were T20 World Cups in 2021 (re-arranged from 2020) and 2022, and something had to give.
What's more of a problem for England is that when something has to give, since 2019, it has more often than not been ODIs.
After beating New Zealand 3-1 at home last month, England played Ireland in their final series before the World Cup. Mott and stand-in skipper Zak Crawley oversaw a second-string, none of whom are present in India. New Zealand got in an extra series against Bangladesh, won 2-0 and then obliterated England by nine wickets in the World Cup opener.
From the start of 2022 to the beginning of the tournament, the only team to have played fewer ODIs than England's 24 were Afghanistan with 23. They have the obvious and dire complication of not being able to play home games.
If we then start subtracting matches such as the Ireland "reserve team" series, a 3-0 win over the Netherlands last year that took place at the same time as home Tests against New Zealand and the lacklustre series in Australia that was tacked onto the end of England's triumphant T20 World Cup jaunt (they lost 3-0), we have a diminished sample size of games where you can reasonably say Mott was working with anything like his strongest side.
Between World Cups, Root played 19 ODIs, with none between July 2023 and September 2023, with Woakes managing 15. Stokes played 13, including three as captain of a scratch team against Pakistan in 2021 after England's COVID bubble was compromised. He then took time away to focus on his mental health and later retired from the format for a year.
Consider that none of these players in their early-to-mid 30s have any competitive 50-over cricket to fall back on domestically and it builds a picture of an England side somewhere between under-cooked and over the hill.
MORE: What are the biggest upsets in ODI Cricket World Cup history?
Will England reach the 2023 Cricket World Cup semifinals?
None of this gives particular grounds for optimism. But with Stokes, the hero of both their World Cup final triumphs and so much more, ready to return against South Africa, expect England to at least go down swinging.
"He spoke really well about that need to assert ourselves, which he's renowned for," Mott said, recounting a team pep talk from the Test skipper. "He said we're normally the team that dictates terms and gets the other team unsettled, disrupted and for whatever reason we haven't been able to do that."
To be sure of qualifying, England probably need to win five of their remaining six games. Four might do it, but they'd need a few favours elsewhere.
First up are South Africa on Saturday, October 21, a game that at least looks less daunting than it did before the Proteas collapsed in an ungainly heap against the Netherlands.
Since Morgan's 2015 reboot, England and South Africa have played each other 18 times in ODI and the record is dead even, with eight wins apiece and two no results.
The form is trending in South Africa's direction, though. They tied a 2022 series in England on a tour when they won the T20 rubber before triumphing 2-1 in a home encounter in January this year.
After that, it's Sri Lanka in Bangalore on Thursday, October 26. In three series since 2015, two at home and one away, England have prevailed on each occasion. However, Sri Lanka threatened to derail their home World Cup with a dramatic 2019 win at Headingley and between June and September this year they won 13 ODIs in a row. That included the successful negotiation of the World Cup qualifier in Zimbabwe.
India obviously had no need for such rigmarole as heavyweight hosts and they would relish extinguishing England's reign on Sunday, October 29 in Lucknow. Buttler, Stokes and the rest will have to call upon all of their IPL smarts to help them through the occasion. There is arguably no tougher assignment in world cricket right now than India away from home in an ODI.
As Mott said this week, with no understatement, England are "backed into a corner". Can a team that have been to the well so often pull through? Maybe. But, to coin a phrase, it might have to be by the barest of margins.