England win the 2013 Champions Trophy

This time in Substitute Universe, the sequence in which our writers enable their creativity modify the match, 1 of our younger England staffers has a dim tale for you

The moment
England’s and India’s players pull back again the curtains on the early morning of the 2013 Champions Trophy final to see thick clouds loom ominously above Birmingham. The rain holds off and Alastair Prepare dinner wins a critical toss, opting to bowl very first with his three Test-match seamers licking their lips at the prospect of locating some early swing. But as the anthems ring out above the PA procedure, the drizzle commences. Six several hours afterwards, the umpires make a decision a T20 can be squeezed in – needing 20 off sixteen balls with six wickets in hand, England somehow screw up a chase of 130 and their fifty-above trophy drought goes on.

The tweak
What if the rain experienced held off just after England experienced won the toss? Underneath leaden skies and with a new ball hooping round corners at the two finishes, James Anderson and Stuart Broad get to do the job early: Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan and Virat Kohli slide cheaply, and from that place, it can be small additional than a procession as Tim Bresnan and James Tredwell mop up the rest. Chasing a paltry target, Prepare dinner ticks above at 4.5 runs for every above alongside Ian Bell as for every normal, and Jonathan Trott provides up a 9-wicket gain with a flick off his pads. England are handed the white jackets and lift their second ICC trophy in three years.

What happened upcoming
With a trophy in the cabinet to back again them up, England stubbornly stick by their 1990s-design ways heading into the 2015 Environment Cup, and even a humiliating team-stage exit will not prompt a modify in how they enjoy white-ball cricket. Prepare dinner clings on to the captaincy, even though the seamers sense the pressure of playing regularly in various formats. Anderson calls it quits just after the 2017 Champions Trophy, and Broad’s final-minute damage – and the global retirement of Eoin Morgan, who chases the franchise dollar just after developing enraged at England’s outdated blueprint – throws their 2019 Environment Cup setting up into disarray. They bow out just before the knockouts in their have event. In the meantime, New Zealand squeeze earlier Australia by virtue of getting scored additional boundaries next a tied Tremendous About in a Lord’s final for the ages.

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