England will play India in three ODIs to round off the first part of their white-ball international summer.
Having brushed aside the World Champions 4-0 in the T20I series, a continuation of momentum into the ODI series will be a welcome distraction from some of the off-field chaos which has followed England across formats this summer. After England trained the day before the first game of the series at Edgbaston. Brendon McCullum will field questions from the media over the removal of his Test responsibilities.
Nevertheless, that distraction takes some of the noise away from England and their poor ODI record in the lead up to the series. The 2019 champions still haven’t secured qualification for next year’s World Cup, currently sitting eighth in the rankings; and their winter outings saw them suffer a series defeat in New Zealand, before they edged past Sri Lanka 2-1 in a large part thanks to a mountain of runs from Joe Root. With what looks like a largely first-choice squad available to them for this series, qualification and preparation for the 2027 World Cup will begin in earnest.
A new opening partnership
It was reported alongside England’s squad announcement that Jacob Bethell will take over at the top of the order. Bethell, Ben Duckett’s fifth opening ODI partner since the beginning of 2025, takes over from Zak Crawley who was drafted in for Sri Lanka over Jamie Smith, who was himself brought in after the Champions Trophy for Phil Salt. Bethell has previously opened for England U19s in 50-over cricket, but has never batted higher than No.4 in ODIs. Nevertheless, his record in the format so far – a hundred and five half-centuries from 19 innings – is decent, and his role as England’s Test No.3 serve as his credentials. England’s 2019 victory was built on a devastatingly strong opening partnership, they’ve been seeking to recreate it ever since.
Multi-format pace attack
Most of England’s multi-format pace core were rested for their January series in Sri Lanka. However, they’ve selected their big guns to face India, with Jofra Archer back in alongside Gus Atkinson. Byrdon Carse is still absent as he recovers from an injury he picked up in IPL training, as is Jamie Overton; Josh Tongue looks likely to make his ODI debut; and Saqib Mahmood has also been included. That leaves England’s pace attack looking largely similar across formats, following Tongue’s success in the T20I leg of this series. How they manage that in the build-up to the World Cup will be a key part of the newly split coaching roles for white and red-ball formats.
All-rounder options
Moving Bethell up to the top creates a gap in England’s middle-order. While they’ve selected Tom Banton as an option to fill it with a specialist batter, including another allr-ounder will provide another option to split the fifth bowler role. In addition to Rehan Ahmed and Sam Curran, both Will Jacks and Liam Dawson have been included as spin-bowling all rounders, while James Coles may make his international debut as well. England have included both Jacks and Dawson in their XI for the first match of the series, squeezing out Rehan, who was used as a pinch-hitter in the final winter ODI in Sri Lanka.
Ending a losing streak
If England started their summer stressing the importance of a returning to winning ways in the Test format, that arguably applies more urgently to their 50-over side. They have won just one ODI series at home since the 2023 World Cup, and haven’t won a series against India in the format since 2018. While England have a decent gap in the ICC rankings to ninth-placed Bangladesh – who have just been beaten 2-1 in an ODI series by Zimbabwe – their position at the 2027 World Cup still isn’t secure. With Sri Lanka and Australia yet to come in 50-over cricket this summer, beating India would be a big step on locking in their automatic qualification spot.
Off-field chaos
The series begins amid the back-drop of Brendon McCullum’s removal from the Test coaching role. While McCullum’s tenure has seen England return to the top of the T20I rankings, an ODI series win will consolidate his continuation as the right man for the job in white-ball formats. Following England’s Champions Trophy disaster last year, next year’s World Cup is an important marker for McCullum to show England’s ODI development under his tenure, having had an opportunity to make the team his own with a young captain. Equally, it’s an opportunity to get the narrative back on the field and put the uncertainty of the last few weeks to bed.
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