The weather was English for the T20 World Cup final at the MCG on Sunday, but not the cricket. The first sign of that was the eighth delivery of the match, which Babar Azam drove into the turf and towards the covers - where Sam Curran fielded and tossed the ball up lamely, softening the punchline of his own small joke.
Since when have England's players had fun on the field? For a while now, actually. And their grown-up, intelligent approach clearly works. Along with becoming one of the most attacking and innovative teams, regardless of format, the English seem to take pleasure in going about their business. You could see that, too, in Moeen Ali sauntering to the crease, his bat slung over his shoulder like a fishing rod, with England 84/4 needing another 54 off 44.
That's not to say England don't take matters seriously. Certainly, there was a seriousness in Liam Livingstone's threatened throw on the stumps after Shan Masood had hammered one of his off-breaks back to him via the pitch in the 11th. And 21 balls after Curran's bit of harmless fakery, when splayed the stumps with the help of the inside edge of Mohammad Rizwan's angled bat, he ripped a roar through his joy.
But there's a lightness of spirit about the way England play that other teams must envy; an absence of the old nonsense about international sport serving as some kind of proxy for geopolitics. They plainly enjoy what they're doing. You might say that's what happens when there is enough money, professionalism and stability in a system to insulate players from the rawer edges of the pressures others face.
Maybe that helps explain why Pakistan batted for most of their innings more like one of the other teams who wear green - the sorry South Africans who disappeared against the Dutch in Adelaide a week ago - than the side whose batters might have turned up on Sunday had India beaten England in their semi-final. That geopolitics nonsense has its uses: it could have served to fill the vacuum of intensity that befell the Pakistani batters.
Source: https://www.cricbuzz.com/cricket-news/124501/england-the-merry-and-glorious-world-champions
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