The end for England proved not as gloomy as the weather. For the duration of this, their final match of their sojourn down under, until the lights took hold and the sky became velvet black, the clouds billowed low and gunmetal-grey over the Sydney Cricket Ground. Showers skittered in on the wind, driving the players from the field three times during the Afghanistan innings, the last time more substantially, bringing their effort to a conclusion and curtailing an already reduced match to what proved to be a 25-over chase for England.
By that time Afghanistan, put in to bat by Eoin Morgan, had struggled their way to 111 for seven, a total that, coming as it did on Friday the 13th, would have had those of a superstitious disposition scuttling for cover.
It proved a simple task for England, who eased home by nine wickets. Alex Hales and Ian Bell added 83 for the first wicket from 13 and a bit overs before Hales was caught behind for 37. Bell finished unbeaten on 52 with James Taylor, back where he began at No3, on eight. The game headed towards the finish line almost exclusively, and somehow appropriately, in a blaze of singles. There were 41 balls remaining.
It had, though, been close to being a suitably damp end to what has been a wet campaign in which, as the England assistant coach Paul Farbrace admitted on the eve of the match, the team had never really recovered from the double thrashing they had received at the hands of Australia at the Melbourne Cricket Ground and New Zealand in Wellington. In no way does this win compensate for anything that had preceded it, but the alternative ought to have been unthinkable yet somehow attained the status of perfectly plausible.
The England team will now fragment, the team sheet torn up, to start afresh in the summer at home, first of all with a match against Ireland immediately after the Caribbean Test tour finishes. There will be some players who have bowled their last deliveries in ODIs and played their last innings, for England will surely not consider picking henceforth any players who they can say now will not be part of their plans for the next World Cup, in England, in 2019. This will no doubt include Jimmy Anderson, Bell and Ravi Bopara, and perhaps even Stuart Broad, although he ought to have a few more miles in his legs yet.
Now, though, the attention turns to a flight home, and then to red-ball cricket once again, with the start of a period of Test match cricket in which they play 17 games in little more than nine months; after West Indies, against New Zealand, Australia, Pakistan and South Africa, as challenging a schedule as can be imagined. The squad for the Caribbean is due to be announced on Tuesday and will be as strong as can be selected. This is no time to treat any series lightly and they have, through their play here, given themselves a couple of weeks’ extra rest.
The nature of the Duckworth-Lewis calculations meant that a target of 101 from 25 overs was not going to offer a particularly stiff challenge. The Afghanistan pace trio ran in with their wonderful gusto and madcap enthusiasm (talented bowlers these, with some genuine pace) and Hales, opening now in the absence of Moeen Ali, was twice missed at point, once from the third ball he faced and again when 12, both times from the suffering Shapoor Zadran. But between times he hooked the first ball from Dawlat Zadran for six, with Bell driving and pulling strongly.
As predicted, England made two enforced changes to the team that lost to Bangladesh. As the team arrived at the ground, Chris Woakes hobbled in on crutches, the team straggled out as if it was the retreat from Moscow. Both he and Moeen, with a side strain, had been ruled out two days before. So James Tredwell and Bopara were given their first and only games of the tournament.
If Afghanistan struggled to make headway against the new ball, unable to hit a single boundary until the 13th over, then Anderson in particular ought to have made better use of conditions that suited him as well as if it had been Trent Bridge in mid-April. Cloud cover and humidity, allied to a pitch that had been sweating under covers, demanded that the ball be pitched full. But Anderson was a yard too short and – seduced perhaps by field settings that had seven men on the off side and, briefly, eight – also too wide; clearly he did not want to stray too straight. So the ball beat the bat, or was waved through. He should have had better reward than a single wicket from his seven overs.
Instead it was Chris Jordan who produced the best bowling, as he had done against Bangladesh, although on this occasion holding a fuller length, and claiming a couple of cheap wickets as a result.
