"I love it when a plan comes together" was the favourite catchphrase of The A-Team's Hannibal Smith, and would invariably
be uttered shortly after the fearsome foursome had battled their way out of yet another awkward situation, using a tank fashioned from a disused pram, a sheet of corrugated iron, a ream of knicker elastic and a box of matches.England's World Cup campaigners would dearly love to find themselves uttering those same words in Mumbai in six weeks' time, but right at this moment in time, they look to be several spare parts short of a viable getaway plan.
An Ashes-sated squad, beset with injuries and disastrously undermined by the loss of their World XI contender Eoin Morgan, is going to need inspiration to strike them pretty damn quick, after their arrival in the subcontinent was marked with Wednesday's dignity-free victory over Canada.
The instant, if unfair, point of comparison is with England's hopeless 1996 World Cup campaign - a trip which was also undertaken on the back of a thumping 6-1 defeat in the southern hemisphere, and whose highlight was a pair of laboured victories over the Netherlands and UAE, interwoven with a host of embarrassments at the hands of better prepared opponents.
But in fairness to the class of 2011, at least the cogs are attempting to whir this time, even if they appear somewhat clogged up at present. The decision to thrust Kevin Pietersen up the order to open the batting may have a smack of desperation about it, but it's the sort of left-field decision that could conceivably revive England's standing as one of the pre-tournament favourites.
Pietersen has only opened the batting on six previous occasions in List A cricket, but appropriately enough, one of those came while playing for The A Team - England A - in India seven years ago. He made 131 from 122 balls in Bangalore, out of a team total of 228, and while it was not enough to secure victory, it did demonstrate a fact about batting on the subcontinent. The top of the order is a position that any self-respecting strokeplayer should covet, not fear.
This time, KP's initial foray at the top was fairly indifferent - he made 24 from 28 balls before chopping on to the medium pace of Khurram Chohan - but afterwards he was quick to dismiss the notion that he has been thrust in as a pinch-hitter. And quite right too, because if the 1996 World Cup was made memorable by the devil-may-care feats of Sanath Jayasuriya, the two most successful batsmen on show were Sachin Tendulkar and Mark Waugh, two middle-order maestros who were given licence to build their innings right from the first over, and responded with five hundreds between them and an average of more than 80 each.
Andy Flower, whose fingerprints are all over the Pietersen decision, is another who led from the front in that 1996 tournament, and though his returns for Zimbabwe were disappointing on that occasion, it did not detract from the logic of the tactic. In the absence of Morgan, KP has reverted to being England's most potent batting option, and when in Asia, your star player is best off leading from the front, when the ball is at its hardest and most likely to ping the fence with the Powerplay fields in place. Neil Smith, who tried and failed at No. 1 for England 15 years ago, was used in a similar vein, but without the small matter of seven ODI centuries and 3500 runs as proof of his credentials.
The notion that Pietersen should open the batting was apparently planted during last month's one-day series Down Under, which seems entirely likely. As Flower admitted back in January, even before that one-day series had started to go awry, the conditions in Asia and Australia are so different that England would in all likelihood have to rejig their tactics and personnel, regardless of whether they won or, as it turned out, got hammered 6-1. Opening with Pietersen on the zippy decks of Perth or the Gabba - against Brett Lee, Shaun Tait and Mitchell Johnson - would have been utterly futile, and in all likelihood counterproductive.
Pietersen's promotion could also help dilute an aspect of England's gameplan that, in spite of some impressive numbers, was looking like an accident waiting to happen. With Morgan hors de combat (at least for now), Jonathan Trott's starting berth looks set in stone, and while on the one hand it is impossible to ignore his prolific current form, his place at No. 3 comes with a notable caveat.
Quibbling about Trott's role in the one-day set-up seems rather churlish. Right at this moment he has amassed 858 runs at 53.62 in 18 ODI innings, which puts him on course to match the record of 21 innings - held jointly by Pietersen and Viv Richards - for the fastest batsman to 1000 ODI runs. In Australia he was the rock of England's batting with 375 runs in seven innings, including two hundreds and an unbeaten 84, and it was a role he reprised in the Canada match, in which he glued the top order together with 57 from 81 balls.
But the suspicion remains that his obdurate method can be a hindrance as much as a help. On the same day that England ground their way to an unremarkable 243 against Canada, the tournament favourites India pummelled New Zealand to the tune of 360 for 5, with Trott's counterpart at No. 3, Gautam Gambhir, cracking 89 from 85 - or 32 more runs from four more balls. An ability to shore up an innings is all very well, but on the subcontinent it cannot come at the expense of forward momentum.
That is where Pietersen will hope and expect to come in. A week that began with rumours of his impending ODI retirement has ended with an eye-catching promotion. It remains to be seen whether the two facts are in any way related, but a cricketer who thrives on a challenge has just been presented with one of the biggest of his career. Whatever their current circumstances, the chance for England's most influential player to dictate the course of their World Cup campaign sounds like the sort of plan that could well come together. I pity the fule who gets in his way.
