The England Cricket Team on the basis of current form doesn’t seem to be one of the favourites to win the World T20 Championship.
The way they have played in the first two matches of the T20 series against West Indies, one should not be shocked if they don’t even qualify for the knockouts in Bangladesh.
There is a lack of balance in the England T20 line up at the moment. They don’t have any experienced finisher and in the shortest form of the game, it’s the finishers who win you matches more often than not.
Last year, England had used Jos Buttler as finisher in the T20s, but, this year, for some reason, they have pushed him up the order and have been using Ravi Bopara in that role.
Bopara is a capable batsman and can strike the ball clean, but, he is not a power hitter by any means. Rather than powering the ball away, he relies on timing for hitting sixes and thus, finds it hard sometimes to collect runs quickly in the last few overs of the innings.
So, it would not be a bad idea for the England team management to promote Bopara to no. 5 and bring back Buttler to no. 7.
England has some issues to sort out in bowling as well. As many other teams in the world, they also don’t have a death bowler. Jade Dernbach is the one whom they generally go with in the death, but, in 90% of the matches, he proves to be expensive.
The problem with Dernbach is that he has got too many variations and he tries to use each and every one of them. In doing so, he loses control and gets smashed.
But, considering the importance of the World T20 Championship, England might not try a new option in that tournament and just keep persisting with Dernbach.