World T20: England's positive, risk-taking approach is finally reaping the rewards

This England team is redefining the mother country’s approach to cricket, loading the group with an infectious can-do attitude

Joe Root (left) and Jos Buttler celebrate England's victory over New Zealand (Getty Images)

Can we play you every week? Forgive the terrace badinage but how else to process yet another remarkable outcome against the best in class? The recent English Renaissance in short form cricket, if not all formats, might be sensibly tagged to the early summer Test and one-day thrashes against New Zealand in 2015, a series that saw old conventions begin to drop away under the aegis of a new coaching regime.

By increments this England team is redefining the mother country’s approach to cricket, loading the group with an infectious can-do attitude that in this competition survived a loss in the first outing and a potential battering in the opening exchanges in Delhi on Wednesday.

A collective gulp echoed around the nation as David Willey went for 11 in the first over, the bruising bat of Martin Guptill threatening to make mincemeat of the English attack just as New Zealand had done of hapless foes in four unbeaten trips hitherto while batting first each time.

But that did not take account of the resolve of an ensemble beginning to understand the meaning of trust. This, perhaps, is what happens when you chase down 230 against South Africa after coughing up a defeat to West Indies in what we suspected might be a recidivist reprise of stale, old thinking.

It helps also to have at your disposal the sheer force of personality that elevates the likes of Jos Buttler and Jason Roy with the bat and, arguably greatest of all in this format, the balls to bowl at the death displayed by Chris Jordan and Ben Stokes. There is just no legislating for that.

These are by any measure special talents brilliantly managed on the field by Eoin Morgan, who has steered England to their second World T20 final despite his own travails with the bat. Thankfully his second first-baller of the tournament did not hurt England such was the supremacy ultimately established by his bowlers.

England have demonstrated their worth, they have earned the opportunity. All that remains is to take it

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Roy went at it like a mallet to a tent peg, breaking New Zealand’s spirit as well as his personal best with a first 50 in a T20 internationals, delivered in all of 26 balls. His 44-ball 78 left England needing to potter home at a run a ball, not that Buttler paid any attention to that.

It would not be fair to classify his 32 off just 17 balls, which included three sixes in the final four deliveries, as a cameo, but it had that kind of feel after Roy’s evisceration had taken the intensity out of the contest.

&#13; Jason Roy hits a six during the World T20 semi-final win over New Zealand &#13; (2016 Getty Images)

So now to Kolkata, where England will face either India or West Indies in the final. No team has won this tournament twice, and few had England down for that distinction after Hurricane Gayle had torn through their ranks just five games ago.

The scale of the defeat inflicted on favourites New Zealand should counsel against getting carried away on Sunday, no matter how emphatic the conquest. These matches turn on a sixpence. England have demonstrated their worth, they have earned the opportunity. All that remains is to take it.