| 
Posts and words
Loading ...Ponting dislikes Twenty20, and they’re doing pretty well at that! Sometimes I think England just need a massive, massive kick up the posterior. You’d have thought this pathetic tour would be a big enough kick, but apparently not.
How low can England go?
By Scott 3 years ago, at the end of January Add your comment below
The team is as low as Michael Vaughan has seen them. Meanwhile, as I write, New Zealand are making a good fist of chasing down 344, and even if they do not get there, New Zealand will take some heart from how well they are batting.
I do not think that England do themselves any favours by making it so plain that they do not like one-day cricket. Australia do not particularly like it either, but they really do like winning, and the best way to win is to keep winning. It becomes a habit.
I will take the positive view and say that England did have a plan entering the Commonwealth Bank Series, but either it was blown out of the water by Kevin Pieterson’s injury, or it has simply been blown off course by their total lack of confidence. Certainly there’s not been any backup plans.
Given England’s total disarray, they could do worse then to talk to the likes of Michael Atherton. I do not think Atherton’s plan is going to win the World Cup for England, but at least it is a plan. At the moment, England look like they are working out their plans with a dart board.
Tags: 2007-world-cup, australia, commonwealth-bank-series, england, michael-atherton, michael-vaughan, new-zealand |
7 Responses to “How low can England go?”
January 28th, 2007 at 12.11 pm
January 28th, 2007 at 7.07 pm
“At the moment, England look like they are working out their plans with a dart board” …
… without any darts.
January 29th, 2007 at 4.55 am
Robert Craddock made the suggestion that at this stage playing the secondary English Academy side would have greater benefits to both the short and long term future of English cricket as opposed to playing the current 3rd or 4th string XI.
The Test wins were one thing, but I’m beginning to feel embarrassed for England. Flintoff in particular, who gives his heart to the game, has to recite the cliches at press conferences, knowing the side has never been so low, and that they probably won’t turn it around in the near future.
January 29th, 2007 at 11.42 am
Apart from team selection (which has been a farce all winter), England’s strategy for the 1-dayers should be something along the lines of – no matter how many runs we score, just bat for 50 overs! Once we get used to batting for that long, the scores will come.
At the moment we’re lucky if we can bat for 40 overs (and if we do we’ve normally lost 7/8 wickets). Bat sensibly for 40 overs, then with only 4/5 wickets down we can start to put some pressure on the oppo in the last 10.
In the words of Hayden, “It isn’t rocket science, gentlemenâ€.
January 29th, 2007 at 1.12 pm
Oh! come on lads and lasses…..let’s face up to it……with the selectors that we have…..they could not even hit a darts board.
January 30th, 2007 at 3.34 am
Rather than slag off the England coach/selectors/players, as everyone else seems to be doing, I would be much more interested in hearing Mike Atherton giving us some insight into what it felt like to be the losing captain, match after match, year after year, and have the media hound you and hound you until you looked like you were carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. I’m sure Atherton hasn’t forgotten. Or maybe he’s just conveniently blocked it from his mind, now that he hunts with the hounds. I would be really interested to hear him tell us what it was like.
And every armchair critic can pick a better team than the selectors, and have a better plan. Only they don’t wear the abuse when the team fails, or half the players get injured or the plan doesn’t work.
February 1st, 2007 at 8.47 am
So does Kathy think we should blindly accept what the selectors and captain do and think?
There is no denying that they have made some fundamental mistakes in team preparation (what was the point in going home for 3 days from India?) and selection (i.e. playing Giles instead of Panesar in particular).
There is also no denying that they are in a very public and difficult situation – but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t vent our frustrations when they clearing make the wrong decision(s) and refuse to admit it! Their shear bloodymindedness over playing Giles was a disgrace.
Comments
« Off to Kenya | Main | Will Luke in Kenya »
