Cricket World Cup: Steven Finn says England need to 'double down' on aggressive approach

As a man who has crawled off the field after a chastening defeat, I can empathise with how England felt following their World Cup opener against New Zealand.

I remember sitting in the dressing room of Wellington's WestPac Stadium, more commonly known as the Cake Tin, during the 2015 World Cup with the crowd stomping its feet, sounding like the entire ground was about to fall on our heads.

The dressing room was in complete silence.

New Zealand had entered the food interval, in front of a home crowd, on 112-1 needing 12 to win our group-stage match.

We returned for 20 more balls and the hosts sealed victory in a 50-over game in 12.2 overs.

No-one could quite believe the mauling we had just received or how to process it.

We ended up on the team buses back to the hotel before it was dark.

I didn't speak to anyone for a few days, I was so stunned at what had just happened. Bowling figures of 2-0-49-0 can do that to you.

There may have been similar silence in the dressing room on Thursday in Ahmedabad.

In their nine-wicket defeat, England were completely outplayed by a New Zealand team missing three senior players in Tim Southee, Lockie Ferguson and Kane Williamson.

New Zealand may have also been extra determined to right the perceived wrongs of the 2019 final in their first meeting in a 50-over World Cup since.

But, where there was a sense of feeling completely out of pace with the world game in 2015, this England team have been the trendsetters in white-ball cricket and are double world champions for a reason. There should be no panic just yet.

'Just yet' is the key phrase there.

Between the 2015 World Cup and today, England have been bold in their endeavour to score runs, proactive in their attempt to take wickets and completely focused on their process regardless of who is in front of them - or the occasion presented to them.

They should not lose sight of this.

In 2019, England lost three group games on their march towards the trophy, albeit none quite as emphatic as the drubbing in Ahmedebad.

In 2017, England's women received a hearty defeat by India in their opening game of the tournament yet went on to win it.

Victory is still possible.

In 2015 we were formulaic in the way we tried to score runs, lacked variety in the way we looked to take wickets and were stubborn in an approach that saw us unable to make the knockout stages of the tournament.

After our defeat by New Zealand in our second game of the World Cup, we had an opportunity to make changes that would have aligned us with the attitude of the leading teams in the tournament, but we doubled down on the method we had played with until this point.

Alex Hales remained on the sidelines until the penultimate group game.

In hindsight, not changing our method was clearly a mistake.

A win against Scotland provided false hope. The defeat by Sri Lanka in the game after was the moment I truly felt as though we were way behind the rest of the world. The penny had dropped.

This team will not face those crossroads.

Unlike in 2015, now is the time to double down on their method and they will be rewarded if they do.

There will be concern at the manner of defeat and maybe some questioning about whether this team is coming to an end of a cycle with the age of some of the players.

But the shared experiences of the last eight years will culminate in a confidence that should see England be capable of turning this around.

Sometimes a team needs a wake-up call to reaffirm the values it stands for.

Some of the meek dismissals and the passive bowling in the defeat in Ahmedabad were not things you would usually associate with this team and they should remind themselves of that before their next game against Bangladesh, in conditions that should be a touch more familiar in Dharamshala.

The foothills of the Himalayas, with cooler temperatures and a more grassy surface, should provide some solace.

Captain Jos Buttler is a proud, determined character who has an empathy about him that will allow him to communicate with the dressing room in a way that should help England remember what has made them such a formidable team.

His job in the next few days will not be to deliver Churchillian speeches that will cause panic within the dressing room.

He will pick players off individually in order to push them in the right direction and give them confidence to trust the knowledge they are capable of taking the positive approach in any situation they find themselves in during a match.

He is not a timid man. He doesn't play his cricket this way and will not want his team to play in that manner again.

Joe Root alluded to the need to do this in his post-match interviews following his fluent 77.

With this we should see the formidable England return, even if it is after a jolting wake-up call.