‘We’ve got our mojo back’: England on the right track for T20 World Cup

England have one more game to play before the start of the T20 World Cup and several questions still to be answered. The core problem Matthew Mott and Jos Buttler have to grapple with, however, is the one the coach and captain will have dreamed of when they picked their squad: which of these 15 players, all of them fit and the great majority also in good form, can possibly be left out? But also, what can possibly be gained from an eighth game against Pakistan in the space of a month?

Mott suggested on Friday that England’s final warm-up, to be played at the Gabba in Brisbane on Monday, will be approached simply as an opportunity to hone the fitness of those players who require a bit of game time and to give those who have not played much since arriving in Australia a taste of the action. He knows the team he would like to play against Afghanistan in England’s World Cup opener and this is not an occasion to play it.

That team will certainly change as the tournament progresses, depending on fitness, opponents and conditions. But as it stands the only players who would certainly not be in most observers’ first-choice XI are Phil Salt, narrowly pipped by Alex Hales for a place at the top of the order, and David Willey, more than anything a victim of Sam Curran’s outstanding recent bowling performances. The only player who seems to be playing significantly below his best is Adil Rashid, who remains all but undroppable.

“That’s the beauty of English cricket at the moment,” Mott said on Friday night after repeated rain showers rinsed away England’s chance of a series whitewash over Australia. “Throughout this series and in Pakistan we made a number of changes and never felt that we’d lessened our chance of winning the game.”

Si