England wake up to one-dayers

Not even the Australians, serial World Cup winners since the end of the 20th century, are able to maintain the pretence any longer. Fifty-over cricket is on its way out, at domestic level for the time being, but surely - despite the ICC's initial protestations - in internationals as well. By experimenting with two-innings, 40-over contests, Cricket Australia have joined England and South Africa in recognising the dwindling public interest in long-form short-form cricket, and by the time the Aussies host their next World Cup, in 2015, the format could well be unrecognisable.

England, you would have thought, would be the first country to rejoice at such a turn of events. For nigh on two decades, they have treated 50-over cricket with the stone-hearted indifference that a thrice-jilted lover would reserve for the former object of her affections. England, famously, lost three World Cup finals in their first five attempts, up to and including Pakistan's Melbourne triumph in 1992, and since then they have performed as if the pain of further rejection is too great a risk to countenance. Or, in other words, as if they have been in a massive great sulk.

But something strange is afoot in the English psyche right now. For the first time in 35 years they are the holders of an ICC global title, and that very fact seems to have awakened ambitions that have been in stasis for more than half of that time-span. What is more, the percentage approach that stemmed from England's lifelong deference to Test cricket, and their subconscious reluctance to alter the status quo, has been mown out of the park by the simple pleasure of putting bat to ball, as hard and as often as possible.

You might have thought that the penny could have dropped sooner - in Faisalabad in 1996, say, when Sanath Jayasuriya taught Mike Atherton's rabble (and the watching world) a sublime lesson in power-hitting. But late is generally better than never, especially when - in the case of 50-over cricket - it could also be now or never. If, as now increasingly seems possible, the 2011 World Cup is to be the last of its kind to be contested, then England's campaign on the subcontinent in eight months' time could be their final shot at redemption in a form of the game that they have disgraced more often than they have graced.

Which brings us back to the Aussies, the team England have conquered in two out of three formats inside the past year, but whose hegemony over 50 overs is among the proudest of the boasts they have accumulated during their reign as the world's greatest cricket team. Next week they roll into town for a five-day ODI series that remains, in conception, a cynical marketing ploy intended to flesh out an English season that the ECB feared would be completely overshadowed by the football World Cup in South Africa. Thanks to the context in which it's being played, however, it suddenly looks set to be a riveting stopover.

Nothing of the sort could be said when these two teams last met in an ODI series - back in September 2009, in the immediate aftermath of an England Ashes victory that sated not only the team's ambitions for the summer, but also those of the English sporting public. Australia, of course, rarely struggle for motivation when it comes to getting one over the Poms - but when people talk of revenge being a dish best served cold, they might as well have had that series in mind. The loss of the urn was too raw and recent for any real satisfaction to be derived from mugging a team that was simply going through the motions.

"It was a hard series for both teams to play after the Ashes," said England's captain, Andrew Strauss. "This time there is a subtext to it, which is both the Ashes coming up and the World Cup - five important games for both sides in their preparations towards that. We see it as a chance to test ourselves against the top one-day side in the world, and less than 12 months before the World Cup that is a good thing to do."

The forthcoming series is a chance to whet two appetites at once. Thanks to a quirk in the calendar that the ECB are seeking to address, every World Cup since 2003 has immediately followed an Ashes campaign, and England's inability to plan effectively for both events at once has tended to result in humiliation on two fronts. This time, however, Australia's visit covers all bases at once. There are too many psychological points to be scored for their visit to be anything less than significant.

It is instructive to recall what happened at the same stage of England's "preparations" for the last World Cup. Back in the summer of 2006, with less than a year to go until the start of the tournament, Strauss led an admittedly injury-hit team in a five-match series against Sri Lanka. They were walloped 5-0, with the coup de grace coming in the final match at Headingley, where Jayasuriya (again) chased a target of 322 with an obscene 12 overs to spare.

Fast forward nine months to the Caribbean, and the scars of that flannelling were revealed in Antigua, when England's best performance of the tournament was still not good enough to overcome Sri Lanka's worst. "Every game is a big game," Sri Lanka's captain, Mahela Jayawardene, had said prior to the contest. "If they've waited this long to see that this is the time to start their World Cup, I don't know if that's the right way to go about it.

"We've been planning [this campaign] for about 12 months, and indirectly before then," he went on. "We knew we had to get the combinations right, we knew we had to get the right people, we knew exactly what conditions to expect, and we had to make sure that the 15 that we bring here are going to contribute in our different combinations. For that we've been planning for quite some time." Sri Lanka, of course, went on to contest the final. England sank without trace among the makeweights of the Super Eights. Neither eventuality was a surprise to anyone who had watched that Headingley massacre.

Even at this early stage, however, and even allowing for the dangers of another Ashes blowout, it's safe to suggest that England will embark on their 2011 campaign in the best frame of mind since 1992. Their line-up looks set to include a classy pinch-hitter in Craig Kieswetter, a refocused Kevin Pietersen, a maverick in Eoin Morgan, and the best spinner in the world in Graeme Swann, which is a spine that would send tingles through any of their most recent efforts.

But more than the personnel, it is the intent that matters most, and in this respect the influence of Andy Flower is crucial. His drive to succeed once secured him the title of the No. 1 batsman in the world, and now his tenure as England coach is a chance to carry a side further than even he could ever do with his native Zimbabwe - who, incidentally, still managed to beat England in six of the first eight ODIs that he contested, as well as outlast them at the 1999 World Cup.

As England have shown at irregular intervals in the past decade, ineptitude over 50 overs does not have to come as standard. In 2004 they were the best side in the Champions Trophy, and would have won the final against West Indies but for an incredible ninth-wicket partnership between Courtney Browne and Iain Bradshaw. That campaign, however, was powered by the Ashes-focused head of steam that Michael Vaughan and his men had spent the summer gathering. The following summer, when their principal objective had been achieved, their ODI form reverted to type.

This time, however, thanks to the World Twenty20, success at one-day cricket has emerged as an end in itself, and as in 1992, many of the players who have become integral to the short game - Kieswetter, Luke Wright, maybe even Morgan - are unlikely to contest the Ashes, and therefore their focus is less likely to be dimmed in the intervening months.

But when Ricky Ponting - a four-time World Cup finalist and five-time Ashes winner - strides out for the toss at the Rose Bowl on June 22, you can bet that every man in the dressing room, whatever his principal goal for the winter may be, will be armed with an A-game mentality. If England get stuffed 5-0 this time around, no one will dare to pretend it doesn't matter.