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Flaky, feeble Harmison
By Will 6 months ago, 3 Comments »
I’ve been away for a week so haven’t properly followed England’s warm-up in New Zealand. Here’s Mike Atherton on Steve Harmison’s worrying (yet predictable; reassuringly normal) performance in Dunedin.
3 Comments »His selection is a formality now, given Chris Tremlett’s early departure, but it will still be hold-your-breath time in Hamilton. In a touching and very English way, Harmison was happy to acknowledge his shortcomings. Speaking after his five-for on the second day he admitted to “still trying to find his feet”, and to being the “sort of bowler who takes time to acclimatise”. Honest feelings, for sure, but it’s hard to envisage many strike bowlers of the past uttering such feeble remarks. Harmison is on his ninth major tour, has 56 Test matches under his belt and 211 Test wickets, and still Vaughan cannot entrust the new ball to him. It is an infuriating situation.
Have England started caring?
By Jonathan Liew 7 months ago, 4 Comments »
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.
4 Comments »Trouble at t’mill
By Jonathan Liew 7 months ago, 9 Comments »
It’s hard to pick just one scapegoat out of the wreckage of England’s latest one-day catastrophe, but let’s start with Ravi Bopara.
Clearly Bopara’s poor series in Sri Lanka has knocked the stuffing out of him. His one-day career, one sparkling innings aside, has been mediocre, and his suicidal run-out of Alastair Cook smacked of a crucial deficit of confidence.
Which raises a valuable question - what on earth is he doing batting at seven? Like most of the England batsmen, he bats in the top three for his county. But seven is possibly the hardest position in which to make your mark - you’ve generally either got three overs to hit out, or thirty to save an innings in crisis. In both situations, Bopara tends to freeze.
So here’s an idea: instead of ringing desperate changes, as the selectors will probably be pressured into doing, how’s about swapping Bopara and Mustard around? Mustard may ultimately be England’s pinch-hitter, but at the moment he doesn’t look like hanging around much longer than the first Powerplay. What’s he like in the middle overs? How will he play spin? This is how you find out.
He’s also the kind of guy you want at the death, unlike Bopara, who for all his hustle has never hit a six in an ODI. It’s worth remembering that even Gilchrist started his one-day career down the order before moving up later.
A top three of Cook, Bopara and Bell might seem a bit stodgy, but it’ll provide some much needed platforms for the likes of Pietersen and Shah to have a blaze later. And all three can score at a fair lick when they’re set, whereas Mustard’s inimitable brand of haru-kiri currently means they’re constantly having to rebuild.
Having said all that, listening to England’s capitulation made me pine for one player in particular - Super Ramps. He’d put that upstart Styris into Row V.
9 Comments »New Zealand v England, 1st ODI, Wellington
By Will 7 months ago, 2 Comments »
England enter the one-day series against New Zealand not only in winning form, but as favourites. What on earth is going on? Me and my boss, Martin Williamson, will be covering the game on ball-by-ball and bulletin throughout the night at Cricinfo. Read Peter Burdon’s preview and join us over there for analysis and humour.
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