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Loading ...Only now, it seems, have England decided to take their coats off….
… just as the Twenty20 after-party is getting going next door.
Have England started caring?
By Jonathan Liew 2 years ago, mid-February Add your comment below
Here are some of the things Paul Collingwood has said during the current one-day series:
“There are 11 blokes in the dressing-room who are devastated.”
“There are a lot of people in that dressing room that are very, very hurt about tonight’s performance.”
“If I had just hit those stumps, we were a millimetre or so away from winning the game. I will probably be dreaming about it for many years to come.”
Compare this with some of the quotes emanating from the England camp after their last proper one-day humiliation, the 5-0 whitewash against Sri Lanka:
Fletcher: “It would be very interesting if Sri Lanka were missing eight of their players and we had eight of our players back. That is the formula you have to look at. What then would the result have been?”
Trescothick: “Nothing seems to have gone our way this series, nothing’s worked. We’ve talked about a lot of things, but not put them into practice too well.”
Strauss: “Sometimes you’ve just got to hold your hands up and say, ‘Well played.’”
It may be that England finally have some sort of emotional investment in their one-day cricket. In the 2006 quotes there’s hardly any sense of hurt or wounded pride. Rather, the tendency was to see one-day defeat as an annoyance, mitigated by the prospect of finally being able to play some ‘proper’ cricket again. It was the equivalent of being spurned by a lover and then protesting that you didn’t want them anyway.
Under Moores – and I’m sure there’s other factors as well – one-day cricket is a fully-paid up, fully equal partner to the longer stuff. Even though the bowling performance yesterday was insipid, there’s no doubting they really wanted it. Perhaps that hunger told in the end. Compare that with Steve Harmison sleepwalking his way through ten overs of rubbish.
The one-day party has been in full swing for about 20 years. Only now, it seems, have England decided to take their coats off.
Tags: duncan-fletcher, england, england in new zealand, one-day-cricket, paul-collingwood, Peter-Moores, sri-lanka-in-england |
4 Responses to “Have England started caring?”
February 21st, 2008 at 7.25 pm
February 22nd, 2008 at 11.52 am
Yes, England is going though a tough time at this moment. It is not the first time a team is going though such problem. Actually, it is a part of game and any team or any player may face such a satiation for a particular period of time. England is also missing some of their key players like Flintoff. So, Collingwood should hold on patience. I think, the good days are coming for England soon.
February 24th, 2008 at 7.34 pm
I really really don’t think the nature of postmatch comments has anything to do with how much the team or the backroom staff “want” to win. I don’t think the team under Fletcher had that much different an attitude from that under Moores. Postmatch comments have more to do with the kind of cliche du jour is current with the team, not with how much they want to win.
February 24th, 2008 at 7.54 pm
Have England decided to take their coats off?
Well, finding a spinner good enough to play 50-over cricket would be one sign of intent…
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