London: Alastair Cook believes England can end decades of World Cup disappointment with a triumph on home soil this year. England have never won the men’s World Cup, but with 100 days to go until the start of the latest edition, a team captained by Eoin Morgan are top of the 50-over world rankings. Former England skipper Cook, who retired from international cricket last year as the country’s highest Test run-scorer and most-capped player, said there were several reasons why Morgan’s men could go one better than the England teams that lost in the 1979, 1987 and 1992 finals.
“They’re a very settled side, they’ve got 15 players pretty much nailed on for that squad,” Cook told AFP at a World Cup event in London’s Trafalgar Square on Tuesday. “Everyone knows their role, they’re very comfortable in their role, they’ve got a lot of strength in depth, they seem to have a lot of options covered and they’re an exciting team to watch. “They are a brilliant one-day side.”
Cook never played in a World Cup, with the left-handed opening batsman dramatically dropped from the squad that then failed to beat a fellow Test nation while suffering a group-stage exit at the 2015 edition in Australia and New Zealand. But Cook said a change of attitude lay behind England’s rise up the one-day rankings since that dismal display. “Probably over the years we’ve really concentrated on Test cricket as a nation. Over the last three or four years we’ve really given the one-day cricket its due,” he said. It was a point emphasised by former England spinner Graeme Swann, who said, “I just think England are picking the right team these days. “They’re picking one-day specialists and the sky’s the limit.
“When they bat, people like Jason Roy, Jonny Bairstow, they think that (scoring) 400 is feasible rather than an impossible dream. I think England have finally picked a very aggressive team as well, with Eoin Morgan, who’s a brilliant captain. “They’ve got a team that is putting them in firm contention to win this World Cup,” insisted Swann, who added “I never thought we (England) would win it deep down when I was there.”
Swann was a member of the only England men’s side to have won a major global trophy, the 2010 World Twenty20 in the Caribbean, and sees parallels between that team and Morgan’s men. “The only world trophy I thought we had a genuine chance of winning was the World Twenty20 in the West Indies that we did, because we were ahead of the curve there. “We picked a team of specialists, people like Craig Kieswetter, Michael Lumb — and I think that’s what England have finally started doing in the one-day game as well.” But Swann warned that England would face several tough opponents in their quest for World Cup glory.