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    Sep 7, 2008

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    Second day at Lord’s

    By Will 2 years ago, mid-July Leave a comment on this post

    Terrific day for England, and a really superb innings from Paul Collingwood. Ian Bell’s was a mixed affair; clearly he was intent on upping the scoring rate as wickets fell, but he simply isn’t able to. That’s not to say he isn’t a fine batsman, an elegant strokeplayer and the most technically perfect batsman England has had for a while. He’s just old school; a 1990s stodger in a post-modern world of speed and aggression.

    Collingwood’s innings was remarkable. I heard one of the commentators compare him, loosely, to Steve Waugh - and actually, he had a point. There is something of the ungainly, dogmatic determination of Waugh in Collingwood; a refusal to be beaten, and to score runs however they come. He is arguably the most important name on the sheet for the plane to Brisbane for the stability he offers, and he also happens to be the best England fielder since, well, ever. His catch at third slip today was breathtaking.

    Good stuff from England, then, although they’ve had their fair share of luck.

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    6 Responses to “Second day at Lord’s”

  • James wrote:
    July 14th, 2006 at 9.05 pm

    It’s amazing how quickly people’s views change! Even yesterday people were saying Cook was far more likely to go to Australia than Collingwood. Before Christmas people were definitely writing Collingwood off as having missed his opportunity, but he has duely taken advantage of injury misfortunes.

    I was very pleased to see Bell score his century, and on top of that both Collingwood and Bell are assets in the field.

    Interested to see the comment on Cric info about all 6 of the top 6 batsman average over 40 in tests!

    It will definitely be interesting to see how things work out over the series, and with Flintoff returning, who will be dropped for him, with all three prime candidates scoring centuries!

    So lets see how England can do with the ball, not just tomorrow, but during this game and the rest of the series, in many ways this is a far greater concern than the bat!

  • Stu wrote:
    July 14th, 2006 at 11.38 pm

    Happy to see Bell make a score - this means he is more likely to tour Australia and that’s a good thing…for Australia..;-)

    Collingwood though - he’s a good package I reckon - gun fielders, handy bowler…hmmm? And all batsmen averaging 40+ - good point. That is the first time in awhile for England, and something Australia used to boast about at our peak.

  • Kathy wrote:
    July 15th, 2006 at 4.29 am

    I’ve felt like I was hallucinating at times over the past two days. Is this really the same abject side which went down 5-0 in the Sri Lanka one-dayers? What is it about that white ball?

  • Innocent Abroad wrote:
    July 15th, 2006 at 9.55 am

    Colly the best England fielder since, well, ever - ah, youth… don’t remember Derek Randall, do you?

  • Kathy wrote:
    July 15th, 2006 at 11.12 am

    Not only that, but I could listen to his accent all day…

  • Sean wrote:
    July 15th, 2006 at 12.26 pm

    I remember when Randall and Gower were demons in the covers - of course this was before Gower’s shoulder went.

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