Michael Vaughan, who advised India to ‘swallow their pride and follow England’ went on to the extent of saying keeping host India as the favourite for next year’s ODI World Cup will be ‘utter nonsense’.
England became the first team to be the reigning ODI World Cup and T20I World Cup champions. They had beaten New Zealand to win the 2019 ODI World Cup at home. A couple of nights ago, they beat Pakistan to win their second T20 World Cup title. Their supremacy in limited-overs cricket has given rise to the debate on whether they are the best-ever white-ball side the gentleman’s game has ever seen. Apart from their double World Cup win in recent times, there are plenty of other arguments in their favour. Since the 2015 ODI World Cup debacle, England’s white-ball team underwent a sea change. The immediate result was the run to the final of the 2016 T20 World Cup in India where they lost to eventual champions West Indies in a last-over thriller.
In the last five ICC events in white-ball cricket, England made it to the final on three occasions, winning two of them. In between all this, they also remained in the top three of both ODI and T20I rankings consistently and were largely responsible for revolutionising white-ball cricket with their all-out attacking mindset.
Banking on all these factors, former England captain Michael Vaughan said the Jos Buttler-led team will be out-and-out favourites to win the 2023 ODI World Cup in India. The former batter, who advised India to ‘swallow their pride and follow England’ went on to the extent of saying keeping host India as the favourite for next year’s showpiece event will be ‘utter nonsense’.
“The next big ticket is to win the 50 over World Cup in India next year. They have good spin options and you have to put them down as favourites for that tournament as well. When the tournament starts people will have India as favourites on home soil. Utter nonsense. England will be the team to beat without any question and that is going to be the case for a few more years to come,” Vaughan wrote in the Daily Telegraph.
Notably, India were the winners the last time an ODI World Cup was held on their soil back in 2011. But since then, they haven’t won any World Cup. Their last ICC trophy was nearly a decade ago in 2013 when MS Dhoni led them to the Champions Trophy title.
“This group of England white ball players is extraordinary and for once English cricket has a trendsetting team the rest of the world should emulate.
“How are England going about their business? What do they do? If I was in charge of Australia I would be all over Mike Hussey, who was a specialist batting coach with England at this tournament and asking what they do behind the scenes. If I was running Indian cricket I would swallow my pride and look at England for inspiration,” he added.
