After narrowly avoiding defeat to Nepal in their T20 World Cup opener, a 30-run defeat to West Indies has put England’s progression to the next round of the competition into question. Yas Rana picks out two big factors holding them back.
The story of both innings in England’s defeat to West Indies were similar and revealing, with England starting well in each before West Indies hit back. In the first innings, West Indies were 79-4 at the halfway point before managing to get up to 196. That recovery reveals England’s first major issue: an unbalanced attack.
Jofra Archer opened up with Sam Curran last night and though both picked up early wickets, neither were with particularly good balls. Archer has great T20 pedigree and is a former IPL MVP, but he is hardly a powerplay specialist, averaging 32.63 in that phase of the game across his whole career. This figure rises to 34.52 over the last two years.
Curran, who shared the new ball with him, averages 40 in that phase of the game over his career, and it’s not really something he does anymore in domestic cricket. In 2025, he opened the bowling just six times in 59 T20 matches.
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Neither do England have bowlers in particularly good death bowling form. Archer and Curran have been going at 10.84 and 11.72 runs per over at the death since the start of last year in all T20 cricket. In fact, no one in world cricket with as many death wickets as Archer since the start of last year has a worse death bowling economy rate than him.
Now, what England are blessed with is an array of spin-bowling options. But West Indies counter-acted the finger spinners by managing their batting order so that there was almost never a time when two right-handers or two left-handers were at the crease, making it harder to decide when to bowl them as there was rarely a favourable match-up on offer.
The lack of obvious options in certain phases prompted England to make a few defensive bowling decisions. Will Jacks bowled the fifth over the game, introduced ahead of Liam Dawson, with England potentially looking to avoid Dawson bowling too much at the destructive left-hander Shimron Hetmyer. The plan backfired with Roston Chase hitting Jacks for three fours in a row and Hetmyer hitting the sole ball he faced from Jacks for six.
The other defensive call was saving up Adil Rashid’s overs. Rashid was brilliant against the West Indies, finishing with 2-16 from his four overs. But was he given the chance to impact the game as much as possible? Perhaps due to England’s lack of certainty at the death, Rashid had two of his four overs saved for the final six.
Between his second and third overs, West Indies piled on 48 in four overs. From 79-4 and being there for the taking, they were back in the game. With no real specialist new ball or death overs specialists, and the Windies batting order making it tricky to use finger spinners, England were left short on options.
Still, that 196, while a very good score, was one that Player of the Match Sherfane Rutherford described after the game as 10 short of par owing to the Wankhede’s short boundaries and the dewy conditions that make batting easier and bowling harder.
That assessment looked accurate as England began their innings, motoring along to the target to begin with. They were 74-1 in the 7th over. Then the slide began, and they lost their last nine wickets for 92 runs almost entirely against spin.
From overs seven to 16, West Indies bowled nine of a possible 10 overs of spin – having already bowled three overs of spin in the powerplay – which ultimately decided the game.
Gudakesh Motie dismissed Jacob Bethell, Tom Banton and Harry Brook with his skilful mix of finger- and wrist-spin, while Akeal Hosein’s arm balls were difficult to get away and Chase claimed the big wicket of a set Jos Buttler.
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England have just come off a successful trip of Sri Lanka, but facing quality spin in the middle overs remains a potential weakness.
At a very basic level, England have a top seven where, the openers and Harry Brook apart, everyone is out of their usual positions.
Take Bethell at three. He’s batted 13 times at three in his entire professional career – 11 of those have been for England in the last six months. Tom Banton has literally never batted at No.4 in his near decade-long domestic career. Sam Curran is England’s No.6 but almost exclusively bats in the top four in domestic cricket these days, while their No.7 Will Jacks has only ever batted in that position seven times in his professional career, and six of those have been for England.
Compare it to the likes of India, South Africa or New Zealand, all of whom have top sevens by and large filled with players occupying roles they’re used to in franchise cricket.
There are good reasons for why England do this – most players want to open the batting because boundary scoring is easiest inside the powerplay, and domestic sides want their best players to face the most balls possible.
If you look at the most runs for English players at Nos.5-7 in the last year or so, the list features players who have never picked up England T20 call-ups, and who aren’t quite considered in the top tier of T20 talent globally, the likes of Tom Moores, Laurie Evans, Sean Dickson, Dan Lawrence and Ethan Brookes.
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It means that England’s middle order is extremely inexperienced at starting out in the middle overs, especially against spin. And it’s been a problem in both games so far. Against West Indies, four of the middle order got out to spin playing shots you wouldn’t describe as aggressive, while against Nepal, they endured a 25-ball spell in the second half of the innings that yielded just 14 runs.
Most of England’s team have good overall records against spin, but they are very inexperienced at doing so from their current positions. Don’t be surprised if other teams pack their team with spin-options for the middle overs.
It’s not yet crisis point for England. While there are issues with the exact role each player in the side is fulfilling, it’s still a team packed with good T20 players, and that can sometimes be enough in a one-off game. But the worry is that there are clear ways England can be targetted. The challenge for Harry Brook and Brendon McCullum is finding the solutions in-tournament to mitigate their weaknesses.
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