‘Project England’ was born at Edgbaston. In a World Cup semi-final Australia can deny it its crowning glory
Humiliated at the 2015 World Cup, England reinvented the way it played, rising to world No. 1 through unprecedented scoring. Four years on, Australia must break their cycle of success, at the venue where it all began.
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Australia appears to have a curse at Edgbaston. It hasn’t won at the Birmingham ground in 18 years.
You have to trawl back to 1993, when Mark Waugh scored Australia’s only ODI century at the venue, for the last 50-over victory.
LIVE BLOG: Follow all the Australia v England action from the World Cup semi-final.
England, on the other hand, hasn’t lost in any format there since 2014.
The locals understandably view the place, which Australia hasn’t seen for two years, as a fortress.
But for captain Eoin Morgan’s team it is much more than that. This ground is where ‘Project England’ was born.
Rewind four years, one month and two days from Thursday’s World Cup semi-final, and England was a screaming mess trapped in the past century.
A country that hadn’t made the final four of the sport’s showpiece tournament since 1992 was still using tactics on loan from that Beefy Botham era.
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They were at ground zero, having been eliminated from the 2015 World Cup by Bangladesh, following on from an embarrassing defeat at the hands of fellow minnow Ireland in 2011.
With a home World Cup around the corner, Morgan promised things would change.
“You can look back and say what you want about the World Cup, but I’m looking forward,” Morgan said at the time.
“There’s about 90 games until the next World Cup and we need to get some games into this team.”
And so, in the first of those games, Morgan’s men were sent in to bat at Edgbaston, against a New Zealand team fresh from playing in it maiden World Cup final.
It started disastrously. Opener Jason Roy’s first ODI innings for England lasted just one delivery, as he dabbed at a full ball and found Martin Guptill at backward point.
What followed was 49.5 overs that made the world peer into Birmingham.
Jos Buttler crunched a 66-ball century — the second-fastest in England history, with Buttler already owning the fastest — and No. 3 Joe Root played with poise as he thrashed 104 (78).
In the first of those 90-odd games, England reached 400 runs for the first time, when 2019 World Cup lucky charm Liam Plunkett smashed Grant Elliott over his head for six in the final over.
They’ve since done it another three times, and have passed 350 in a further 14 matches.
Adil Rashid, after thumping 69 (50) in his first innings for England since 2009, then jagged 4/55 to spin the Black Caps out for 198, delivering England its biggest ever winning margin of 210 runs.
The records in that match kept rolling.
England’s first game since its 2015 train wreck was also its highest ODI score by a No. 6 batsman (Buttler), its highest seventh-wicket partnership in ODI history (177 runs) and the most sixes hit by England in an innings up to that point (14) — though Eoin Morgan plundered more than that off his own bat in a group game win over Afghanistan at this World Cup.
Fancy that — roughly 89 games remaining until the World Cup and the sleeper in the pack had woken, albeit with training wheels on.
It was far from a finished product. The Black Caps won the next two ODIs, and England would lose two of the following three series.
Slowly, the gears clicked into place. Morgan’s men have 14 out of 16 series of substance leading into its own tournament.
The No. 1 ranking in the world belonged to them, as did batting records that previously were consigned to video games such as Stick Cricket.
Could they reach 500 runs? Had they changed 50-over cricket forever? They were the two key questions entering a home World Cup, which they entered under more pressure than Aaron Sandilands’ thongs.
But importantly, seven England players from that very first Edgbaston awakening will face Australia tonight.
It could’ve been eight, had Alex Hales not failed a drug test on the cusp of the cup.
“They’ve been together a long time,” Australian coach Justin Langer said when asked about his rival’s rise.
“I remember seeing David Willey in Perth when he was starting at the Scorchers and I said: ‘You guys are going unbelievable, what’s happened?’
“And he said: ‘Well, four years ago the coach or (Andrew) Straussy (former director of cricket) said: ‘This is the squad we’re going to take to the World Cup’.
“They’ve been together for four years. They’ve got great continuity England and obviously have unbelievable confidence because they have played together for four years.
“And they’ve obviously got a good game plan and a lot of very talented cricketers.
“All those factors combined is why they’re the best team in the world. And we’re aware of that.”
Strauss sacked coach Peter Moores, ruled out a return for Kevin Pietersen and threw extra resources at white-ball cricket.
Australian Trevor Bayliss was appointed coach, having cut his teeth at NSW and then Sri Lanka.
The ground-zero rebuild is one the world has watched with interest.
After South Africa crashed out of the World Cup last week, captain Faf du Plessis was asked whether his country needed to adopt that England model.
“In a perfect world, yes, we’d do that,” du Plessis said.
Langer’s Aussies have taken a different route to tonight’s blockbuster.
England has been building for four years and Australia has been building for five minutes, throwing together the guts of a World Cup squad on the back of a four-hour crisis meeting last December.
England owns Edgbaston and Australia hates it, although debutant Peter Handscomb was none the wiser.
“Cool. I didn’t know that stat so…,” Handscomb said of England’s Edgbaston run.
Pressed again, Handscomb said: “Now that I do (know it), it really makes no difference. I mean, they’re past games.”
Five of England’s top six have scored ridiculous centuries on the batting paradise: in-form openers Jonny Bairstow (111 off 109) and Jason Roy (112 not-out off 95), No. 3 Joe Root (104 off 78), No. 4 Jos Buttler (129 off 77) and No. 6 Ben Stokes (102 not-out off 109).
They are all blazing tons.
Between the 2015-2019 World Cups these teams met 16 times, with England leading 12-5.
But Steve Smith’s century caused an upset in the tournament’s dress-rehearsal in May, and then left-armers Mitchell Starc and Jason Behrendorff shared nine wickets as Australia doubled-down with a World Cup win in June.
England brought in some fast left-arm net bowlers to help prepare, and took confidence from restricting left-arm Kiwi star Trent Boult to 2/56 recently.
But Starc is on another level under this pressure, and so is Australia.
The five-time champions have never lost a semi-final, and England hasn’t played one since Morgan was enrolling in a Catholic school in Ireland.
So, who wins?
“Mentally strong players — the champions — stand up in big games,” Langer said.
“We are lucky to have mentally strong players, and so are England.
“They’ve got all the history of the past few years, and we have been coming good in six months.
“The champions stand up in these big games, so we’ll see who’s got the best champions this one.”
WHERE THE ‘NEW’ ENGLAND WAS BORN
England vs New Zealand at Edgbaston, 2015 (First completed ODI after the World Cup)
*records at the time of the match
England’s biggest winning margin (210 runs) in ODIs
Highest ODI total by England (and 10th highest of all time)
Highest ODI total in England
Highest ODI score by a number six batsman for England
Most sixes scored in an ODI innings by England (14)
Highest seventh-wicket partnership in ODI history
Buttler’s 100 was the second-fastest in England ODI history
Root’s 100 was the fourth-fastest for England
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