It will lift English cricket — for a while

England’s Twenty20 World Cup triumph cheered the nation, coming hot on the heels of a dreadful winter and an election result which causes a degree of optimism. It was certainly England’s greatest cricket achievement... of this year. No success in the miniaturised version of the game can rate as highly as Test match success. 

And of course it was all the sweeter for being against Australia (though had the ICC ensured that video referrals were available, as they should have done, it would have been much closer — perhaps the opposite result). Haddin’s dismissal was highly dubious and Kieswetter seemed plumb lbw.

It will lift English cricket — for a while. But there are always so many other tournaments of all kinds coming up.  There is little time in which to savour any victory in today’s mad international cricket world.

That won’t stop Paul Collingwood, in particular, from looking at his winner’s medal from time to time and relishing the memory of May 16. There is no long-term strategy in Twenty20, just adaptations as you go.

Yes, England did field four cricketers born outside England. That doesn’t seem to matter to most people any more. The ICC sets the qualification rules. If it’s thought that England’s three South African-born players ought not to have played for their adopted country then there’s a remedy. But trying to persuade the ICC to do anything to improve the running of the game is like talking to a stone effigy.

Remember, in the 1980s England fielded almost a full hand of West Indies-born fast bowlers. They were all regarded as “genuine immigrants”, so the matter subsided. Today, South Africa’s cricket structure is such that a number of cricketers with ancestral links with Britain have decided to exploit them. But as England continue to be successful, there will not be the same number of desperate vacancies that existed earlier.

By the time England go to Australia at the end of the year, some of these Twenty20 champions will not be in the party. They have been chosen as specialists. And yet: Players like Eion Morgan and Craig Kieswetter seem to have enormous talent and could prove to be very fine Test cricketers. Who knows?

Collingwood will almost certainly return to the ranks as Andrew Strauss resumes as Test captain. And Strauss’s task will be somewhat greater in Australia. The last time England went there as holders of the Ashes saw a pathetic Test capitulation under Flintoff.

If there is one man above all others who deserves credit for England’s victory in Barbados, it is Andy Flower. He is astute and calm, and his influence has been the greatest single factor in England’s climb from the lower rungs of the world ladder. The next 12 months may yet see England top in all forms of the game.

David Frith is a former editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly