Heading into a blockbuster winter, England's end-of-summer white-ball series' against South Africa and Ireland highlight the nightmare schedule they're perpetually battling, writes Ben Gardner.
The South Africa T20Is, and the Ireland series which follows it are, you get the sense, games England would rather not be playing. All their Test incumbents are missing from the latter, with Jacob Bethell set to become England’s youngest captain across formats. In the former, Jamie Smith and Ben Duckett are absent after initially being picked, shot by a summer whose marquee events have long since taken place, while the opener was so rain-sodden they decided there was no sense risking Jofra Archer. But Luke Wood, you can go and have a slide around if you like.
The game was, as Harry Brook put it, “a shambles”, a 56-ball smash ’n’ splash from which little could be gleaned. The rest of the series promises more learnings, a chance for Sam Curran to impress and for Phil Salt to show why he’s one of the world’s most highly regarded T20 openers. But still there’s the feeling that some involved would rather be anywhere else. In particular, there’s the captain, whose dismissals in the ODI series revealed a player missing that edge that is vital for success against the best, two frazzled run outs and a half-hearted prod. In the 9-to-5 over game, he swished through the air three times before holing out off the fourth. Just two more games, Harry, and then a proper rest.
So much about this isn’t ideal, and while it is not all The Hundred’s fault, the impact of that event is only going to become more pronounced as the demands of private investment take hold. This year, The Hundred began one day after the end of the England-India Test series – itself unusually taxing, with every Test going into the second half of the final day – and ended two days before the first ODI. As is to be expected, many of England’s players were involved in the back-end of that competition, and so didn’t train before the first ODI. A collapse to 131 all out was expected more than it should have been. By the end of the series they’d found a groove, and by then the series had gone.
There has been a near-constant suggestion that the schedule is always on the brink of easing, if only England can get through the next month or two unscathed. Then another global tournament or epochal five-Test mega event looms into view, with England’s lesser bilateral engagements filling out the rest and leaving no room for air. Brendon McCullum and Rob Key increasingly resemble the exhausted parents who keep telling themselves things will calm down in a week or two. Then comes an unexpected cello recital, an ODI series in Sri Lanka two weeks after the Ashes ends. Oh, we’ve got to stitch that costume for the Christmas play, and then pick a squad for February’s 2026 T20 World Cup. But after that we’ll get some rest I’m sure.
There are undoubtedly micro-decisions England could take to improve matters. Had the T20Is followed The Hundred, a smoother transition up the overs could have transpired. Either way, Smith and Duckett should have missed the series in the format whose World Cup is over two years away, rather than the one in six months’ time. Equally, Jacob Bethell should never have spent so much of a formative summer carrying the drinks. There is a balance to be struck between too much and too little, and all the while there are games to be won, World Cup qualification-guaranteeing rankings points to be secured.
The other countries with uber-demanding schedules have a luxury England don’t: being at a stage where their most established players can basically just turn up to world events with minimal match practice. India’s IPL-stocked talent pool allowed them to go a whole year without Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli playing a T20I, before both rocked up to cruise to the T20 World Cup title. Jasprit Bumrah hasn’t played a game in a white-ball bilateral series in either format since the last ODI World Cup. Australia are the trailblazers of not giving a shit until a big show rolls around, and then winning the thing anyway. England tried that in 2023, and were so thoroughly dismantled that they are still picking up the pieces.
This is, unfortunately, a team whose issues will only be sorted by being out there. How can Smith, Brook and Bethell learn the rhythms and gears of ODI batting? By playing ODIs. How can McCullum figure out a team balance that makes sense, without a fifth bowler that’s really a sixth and a seventh bowler getting pumped for 113? By trialling different combinations of the select few who can both bat and bowl. Even the third and fourth bowlers present an issue, themselves still learning the format, trying to fill the gap left by the frames of Liam Plunkett, Chris Woakes and Mark Wood, a seam attack that took England to the pinnacle.
The only way England can get better is by playing, but playing too much is what’s crushing them. Still, in a year, or a decade, or a lifetime, things will ease up.
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