The previous six to eight months haven’t been good for England in the white-ball games, as they struggled in both formats and looked out of touch in the last two ICC tournaments, despite being the defending champions of both competitions. The questions have been raised over their limited-overs coach Matthew Mott.
England didn’t enjoy their six weeks in India during the 2023 ICC Men’s ODI World Cup, where they finished in the seventh position with just three wins, two of which came against Bangladesh, and the Netherlands. Their other victory was against the Pakistan side, who themselves could register only four victories in the league stage.
The Jos Buttler-led side went on to lose five straight games during the tournament, as most of their batters looked out of touch. The decisions at the toss felt defensive while there were issues off the field about the central contracts too.
‘That’s certainly not true’- England Cricket Board CEO
Most of their defeats came with a heavy margin, irrespective of whether they were defending or chasing. The same story continued during the recent Men’s T20 World Cup 2024 in the West Indies and United States of America (USA).
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At the start of this week, The Times reported that Australian Matthew Mott was set to leave his disappointing campaign during the 20-over ICC tournament. The England director of men’s cricket, Rob Key spoke about assessing the events and holding a talk with the head coach and captain of the side.
When the ECB chief executive Richard Gould was asked whether the news of Mott leaving his position was true or not, he came up with a quick response on the development.
‘That’s not true. That’s certainly not true. Matthew Mott is a really good guy and coach. He’s got a great track record and it is the same with Jos.’ The ECB CEO expressed to ‘BBC Test Match Special’. ‘We are always assessing options – that is what happens in high-performance sport, you are always assessing your options.’
In the Caribbean, England reached the semifinal of the competition, where they lost that game against India in Guyana. In the league stage of the event, they won two of their four games- both of which came against the two associate nations- Oman and Namibia, while they were defeated by Scotland in their opening encounter.
‘You never want to be drawn into being given the dreaded vote of confidence or anything like that. Competitive sport always brings scrutiny and decisions.’ Richard Gould expressed during the conversation. ‘We’ll constantly want to assess our options but we’ll always want to do the right thing by the sport, the team and individuals.’
At the beginning of this month, Key was asked if Buttler and Mott would continue to remain in charge of the position despite their poor performances of late in the white ball tournaments, to which the former England player advised of taking the best way for the team to move forward.
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Richard was also asked the same question of whether Mott’s job was safe, to which he spoke about taking the same route as Rob Key.
‘We’ll always use whatever time we’ve got available to make the best decisions possible. We won’t be pressured into anything other than that.’ Gould concluded the discussion.
Mott had an excellent start in his tenure having helped the team in winning their second title of the T20 World Cups in 2022 in Australia. His records in the shortest format of the game are quite good with 23 wins and 19 defeats. However, he has a poor time in ODIs, having lost 18 and won 16 of the completed games.