NEW ZEALAND’S annihilation of England was a brilliant expression of their talent and reaffirmed the belief of several experts that they might win the World Cup, never mind that Australia and South Africa are still favoured by bookmakers and India have the support of a billion-plus fans.

Do a quick fact check and the Kiwis come across as the best performing side over the past 15-18 months — and across all formats. They’ve played aggressive cricket, have played to win with the players hardly concealing their ambition.

Against England on Friday, they were brutal and exhilarating in equal measure. I can’t remember such a lop-sided contest between two major teams in a World Cup ever and suspect other teams in this competition will now view New Zealand with awe and trepidation.

At the core of New Zealand’s rise to recent excellence is Brendon McCullum — as batsman, but even more importantly as captain. He has had a say in the choice of players, made them gel with each other and instilled a high sense of commitment which is evident not just in the individual performances, but also the collective body language.

Consider Tim Southee, who somehow had seemed to be an underperformer despite his superb skills as a swing bowler. On Friday, he upped his pace, got late movement and bowled a lethal spell that would have done Dale Steyn credit: or indeed any great bowler in the history of the game.

England’s batsmen did not know quite what hit them and Eoin Morgan’s decision to bat first turned out to be a cruel joke he had played on himself. Given the form of the New Zealand bowlers, however, I don’t think it would have made any difference had England batted second.

High quality swing bowling is never easy to play — even if you have played swing bowling all your life. And that goes for spin bowling too! But time-held truisms apart, what made England come apart so embarrassingly is the question on everybody’s lips.

It has something to do with form obviously, but I venture it has even more to do with misplaced priorities and flawed selection leading to a confused campaign for this tournament.

There has been a great deal talked about Kevin Pietersen becoming a persona non grata in English cricket so I won’t dwell on it further except to say that this has been decision of either great courage or great foolhardiness.

The margin of defeats suffered by England in their first two games would suggest that it is surely the former, but the tour management has not helped matters by some quirky selection, notably in keeping out specialist Alex Hales and persisting with the opening pair of Ian Bell and Moeen Ali.

True, these two gave some decent starts in the matches leading up to the World Cup. But by the time the tournament started, opposing bowlers had sorted them. Both Bell and Moeen deserve to be in the team, but not at the top.

In a sense, England’s plight is symptomatic of the troubles confronting Pakistan and the West Indies too, though for different reasons in that they are in the World Cup without their best combinations.

The West Indies dumped Dwayne Bravo and Kieron Pollard, two seasoned players and ODI specialists on disciplinary grounds. Pakistan, unfortunately, lost the services of Umar Gul, Mohammed Hafeez and Junaid Khan through injury and Saeed Ajmal because of a suspect action.

The performances — and success so far — of Australia, South Africa, New Zealand and India has shown how crucial balance and depth will be to go through this high pressure, extremely competitive tournament.

Consequently, within the first week, all three teams are already tottering to ensure a place in the quarter-finals. In the context, Saturday’s match between Pakistan and West Indies could end up being a decider as to which team survives the league phase.

England and Pakistan may draw some consolation from the fact that they meet two tough opponents in their first two matches. Ostensibly, things should get better from here. On the other hand, it could get even worse.

The writer is a former Sports Editor of Times of India and a leading cricket analyst

Published in Dawn, February 21st, 2015

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