Arthur Crabtree wrote:Alternatively IJLT displayed heroic tenacity in the face of his team mates' incompetence. Runs in 2011 for England
But batting in the top slots can have an effect on those below or alongside. If your partner has a long established form of batting within himself, or batting out overs at relative slow speeds, and your chasing 300, it puts amazing pressure on the partner to provide the pace of the attack. How many pinch hitting openers or top order players were sent in by England to slog everything, expected to make up the pace alongside someone like Cook, Bell and Trott? Lots. Someone like Luke Wright was expected to hit the ground running, but even in T20 he needs an over or two at his best to see out a few, then the acceleration is breath-taking.... but do that for England, youd be 10-0 after 6 overs, chasing 300.
Take a bit of maths. If Bell, Cook and Trott were to play their average ODI, youd bat out 28-29 overs for 126 runs. If everyone else maintained perfect 100SR's, at the very top of the then level of striking, youd make 250 in an innings, which would be under par in most contests. I think a series not long after the 2011 World cup (maybe late 2012?) occured in India v Australia, where in 7 ODIs there was one score of 298, and one score of 250, then everything else went over 300, with a few 350s knocked off. Thats what England were competing with at this present stage of ODI development.
With Bell, Trott and Cook in the team, on average you would need the rest of the batters to Strike at 8.3 an over to reach 300, or a SR of near 140. Hand picking the best strikers in the history of the game (Maxwell, Afridi, Buttler, Sehwag and Perera), you would only manage an average of 114SR, or a 143 extra runs, or a total of 269. It might be competitive in some situations, but not consistently.
7 international teams on average scored high run rates than the above scenario in 2011.... its unsurprising we only won 3 out of 7 matches at the World Cup, including a loss to Ireland, Bangladesh, and a near loss to the Netherlands.