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Originally Posted by FaaipDeOiad
They won two matches, you realise? Sure, they played well and everything, but winning 2 games with a tie and three losses doesn't make up for getting hammered by every other nation in the world the rest of the time. Sri Lanka won two matches against Australia last time they played them at home in a five match series. New Zealand tied an ODI series a couple of years back and lost one very narrowly last summer, and South Africa beat Australia 3-2 in an ODI series just this year.
It happens, simple as that. If anything, England have declined as an ODI side since then, while most of the other top sides including Australia have made significant improvements in the leadup to the WC. Certainly there's no way England are in the same league as New Zealand atm, who have a very solid and consistent ODI lineup, or Sri Lanka. India and Pakistan minus Shoaib and Asif are closer calls, but they're still more consistent and have fewer players who simply aren't up to international standard.
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England took something off Australia in a final, a full strength Australia at that. They are the only team other than possibly SL in the past 6 years to do that, SL won a game in a best of three against a slightly weakened side but got got completely crushed in the next two games so lost in the end. NZ have only beaten weakened Australia sides in fairly meaningless games (and they're bound to win the odd one because they play each other so much), once Australia wants to win something badly enough NZ are brushed aside like most other sides, especially now they're a real force again. Only England and WI have displayed the mental strength (and talent) to beat them when it counts for something, at high strength.
New Zealand have about as much chance of beating Australia in the World Cup as I have of winning a Nobel peace prize.
England's ODI decline is down to injury and apathy, they will go for it in a World Cup so there's half of their problem gone, whether they'll have a full strength side is another matter.