Swann: We need to improve our 'match swing'

Swann will captain the T20 side (GETTY IMAGES)

Outplayed in their last two matches, England are not blind to where their problems lie as they attempt to keep alive their one-day series against Sri Lanka at Trent Bridge in today's day-nighter. They have a plan to put matters right too, although it is not so straightforward as merely scoring runs or taking wickets.

It involves a factor to which Graeme Swann alluded yesterday, something called "match swing", which could be interpreted either as brilliantly insightful analysis or a statement of the obvious, depending on your point of view.

"It's a way we have of scoring the team's performance," Swann (above) said. "It is based on things like wides and no balls and misfields, a measure of how disciplined we are. It is something that David Saker [England's fast-bowling coach] brought in. The fewer free runs you give away, the better your match swing. He says that you can't win a game if you have a bad match swing. It is a way of making you think about discipline in your performance and how those things all add up. Our match swing in the last two games was bad, way off the charts."

England's bowlers, in fact, sent down 28 wides in the three one-dayers against Sri Lanka so far (plus another 10 in the Twenty20 international), compared with 15 from the tourists' attack, so the scores thrown up by Saker's system are hardly surprising.

It might be argued, too, that England's continuing failure to score runs at the optimum 50-over tempo is a more serious shortcoming. The question of whether two such steady accumulators as Alastair Cook and Jonathan Trott can be accommodated simultaneously remains unanswered. Swann conceded that England "could tweak the order a bit" but defended his colleagues nonetheless.

"You are always looking to score as quickly as you can in one-dayers and the benchmark is to get 300 because that usually wins the match," he said.

"I do think that reaching that benchmark with Trott and Cook in the first three is feasible. It has been highlighted in the last couple of games that we have not scored well in the power plays but I think that has been more to do with a mixture of good bowling and trying to preserve wickets.

"The best top-six batsmen in England are the ones batting for England."