Hopes and Fears for the Sri Lanka Game

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Once more into the breach, dear friends. Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood. The game’s afoot: cry ‘God for Harry (Gurney?), England and …. blah, blah, blah.’

Sorry folks. I just can’t summon the enthusiasm today. I’m fearing the worst. We have to win against Sri Lanka tomorrow or we’ll have no credibility whatsoever.

If we lose this game, I fear we’ll lose to Afghanistan too. Confidence will be shattered, the Afghans have a few decent bowlers, and what headlines it would make back in Kabul … not to mention bloody Sydney.

I watched some of the New Zealand versus Australia game last night with envy. What a contest. There was so much intensity: too strong sides going at it hammer and tong. Can England really match these standards?

The frustrating thing is I know we have the talent to succeed. But somewhere along the line – somewhere along that monotonous international treadmill – the joie de vivre abandoned this England side.

Stuart Broad used to bowl quite fast. So did Steve Finn. Not any more. How on earth did it get to the point where Chris Woakes, an archetypal bog standard English seamer, became our best bowler?

Our batting’s no better. It’s arguably worse. Just as it was beginning to show signs of life after the Alastair Cook debacle, Moores changed the batting order on the very first day of the tournament. Oh Peter. What were you thinking?

This England side have been firing on less than half of their cylinders for a while now. Sri Lanka, on the other hand, look like they’re finding their feet.

It certainly helps that this game is being played in Wellington, not Galle or Columbo. Hearth will probably bowl tidily, but our batsmen shouldn’t get bogged down in the middle overs. Some pundits even believe the pitch will suit England’s seamers.

I’m afraid I don’t share their optimism. Sri Lanka’s pace attack is probably as good as ours on current form. We have one of the slowest seam attacks in the tournament, and our swing bowlers simply haven’t swung it. Or moved it off the seam much.

Our cause isn’t without hope – Sri Lanka aren’t as good as Australia and New Zealand – but they do have Kumar Sangakkara, Mahela Jayawardene and Angelo Mathews. That’s three reasons to be negative right there.

Which England players will the Lankans be worried about? All our supposed big guns are struggling for form.

James Morgan

@DoctorCopy

44 comments

  • The Australia New Zealand game was exciting, but was it really great quality in terms of the intelligence of some of the batting?

    When Australia went 80 for 3, I thought their batting became completely headless. Maxwell, Marsh, Johnson and Clarke and to a lesser extent Smith played poor shots, because they couldn’t stop themselves playing a shot a ball. If England lost 8 wickets for 27, we’d be spitting and castigating Peter Moores, Giles Clarke, Andy Flower, David Saker, Waitrose and probably Alistair Cook as well.

    NZ were also a bit headless – McCullum bats as he does which is fine, but when they lost a few wickets, they seemed to be unable to stop attacking. To be fair Starc bowled well, but they seemed to be unable to stop trying to score at a run a ball, and ended up somewhat lucky to win.

    Dynamic and intense cricket is exciting, but is brainless ‘go for it no matter what’ is pretty poor.

  • Apologies in advance for any typos, I was up all night watching the NZ vs Aus game – given how infrequently we get to play Australia these days such opportunities are not to be missed.

    I though Australia’s batting was predicated on their belief (shared by everyone who looked at the pitch) that they would need to post north of 300 to win, and certainly Haddin showed what was possible once both white balls had aged a bit. The mindset of making sure you’re in post the 25th-30th over when haymaking time starts is taking a little while to sink into players’ heads. Add to that that the new Kookaburra ball is swinging, and (crucially) swinging late, at pace, and it’s easy to see why attacking-minded players are misjudging the bowling. Part of McCullum’s success is down to his aggression, he’s hitting a lot of balls a metre out of his crease, before the late swing kicks in. Kane Williamson did show what can be achieved with a little application, unfortunately for NZ Taylor’s poor form continued, and Elliot got a full, swinging, straight one 1st up after the break, and it looked like his brain was still in the pavillion. Anderson and Ronchi are late innings strikers, and showed why they’re both not currently in NZ’s 1st choice test XI

    Sri Lanka are beatable, but to do it England are going to need to take early wickets, and plenty of them. Get Sri Lanka 5 or 6 down in the 1st 20, and the late innings acceleration becomes much harder. My worry though is the lack of pace in England’s attack as James mentioned – NZ and Aus both had a bowler topping 150kph, and had 2 each over 145. Unless your name is Brendon McCullum, 90mph+ is _hard_. 80-85mph (as Marsh & Anderson showed) is hittable. Batting-wise if England can tick over at 5 an over for the 1st 20 without losing too many wickets anything is possible.

    As to England and joie de vivre, George Dobell makes some quite cogent points about the English system on Cricinfo today, along with offering up a pretty mind-blowing stat:
    “…since losing the World Cup final of 1992 in Melbourne, England have only won five games against teams from the top eight of the Test rankings and none against Australia, India or New Zealand. Their other 12 victories have come against the likes of Netherlands (three times), Kenya (twice), Canada, Scotland, Ireland, UAE, Namibia, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe. And there have even been some defeats along the way.”
    http://www.espncricinfo.com/icc-cricket-world…/…/840721.html

  • According to various reports, England were practicing their ‘range-hitting’ before tonight’s match. The last two games in NZ the ball has swung round corners. Are we practicing for that?

    Also, after the NZ v A match, our batting against NZ arguably doesn’t look quite so bad. Our bowling though got off far too lightly. You can’t defend a small total? You can make the opposition work bloody hard though! As for McCullum, Clarke (who made some poor decisions as well) did at least try to do something different – England just kept doing the same thing.

    It’s a common and familiar theme – stick with the plan and don’t adjust to the actual match circumstances.

    • The Eden Park crowd were heard chanting “you’re worse than England” at the Aussies during Australia’s collapse – we know how to wind up an Aussie ;-)

  • The important issue is will the 11 men of Sri Lanka all sing their national anthem with sufficient gusto? This, according to one of the morons who passes himself off as an English cricket joiurnalist is all that matters.

    If Morgan sings nothing, or God for bid he starts a rendition of Danny boy then the sky will fal in.

    “Oh Daily Mail, the lies, the lies are calling………..”

    • Eoin should try singing this, to make up for its absence whenever England and Wales play:

      Gwlad, gwlad, pleidiol wyf i’m gwlad.
      Tra môr yn fur i’r bur hoff bau,
      O bydded i’r hen iaith barhau.

    • If all the Lankans sing their national anthem with gusto they’ll be exhausted by the time the action starts. The SL national anthem goes on for approximately 5 hours and sounds like a tune from Disney’s ‘It’s a small world’ fairground ride.

  • It’s all right for you lot. My next door neighbour is Sri Lankan and I am sure will be all over me like a rash if Sri Lanka win… God he loves a wind up.

  • BBC website tries a positive spin:

    “These teams have met nine times in World Cups. Sri Lanka have won both knockout games (1996 and 2011), but England have won six of the seven group games”.

    What they don’t mention was that 5 of those 6 wins were before 1995. England’s last WC win against SL was in 1999 and we lost to the last two – in 2007 (narrowly) and 2011 (heavily).

    In the Downtonverse we’re obviously due.

  • Is it too much to hope that we at least compete to the end? I’d accept being beaten by Sri Lanka as long as we actually give ’em a proper game. C’mon England! (and Wales)

    • Yeah, well… that was great. Bangladesh and Afghanistan must be licking their lips.

      To take a positive, we were at least competitive up until Sri Lankan began their innings. And a personal positive for ‘Moorsey’? A big fat redundancy pay-off coming his way in a couple of weeks. Just in time to offer his management skills to some poor blameless county side.

      • I fear Moores will survive whatever. Downton will come out and talk about that supposed amazing turnaround versus india in the tests last year.

  • Well done to Morgan for not singing the national anthem. It is a remarkably silly song. I used to have to sing it each day when I was in first grade at school, in Australia. (Then it was changed to something marginally less silly.) I thought the lyric was “God saved the Queen”. I was always asking people when this extraordinary event had happened, but no one would ever tell me.

    • Oh, I don’t know. I love the Australian national anthem. My favourite bit, which I always sing with gusto, is:

      “For those who’ve come across the seas
      We’ve boundless plains to share,
      With courage let us all combine
      To advance Australia fair.”

      Not that I’m trolling them, or anything..

  • just got up to hear that england picked the same team, again.
    that england played ballance at no.3 again
    that ballance scored the massive sum of 6 runs
    that the middle overs were ‘slowed down’ again interms of runs
    that broad opened the england bowling with anderson again
    that england didn’t score enough runs again
    that england were well and truly thrashed again
    funny that
    what is the point of england?
    what is the point of following them?

  • Well, it was just as terrible as I’d feared. Who’d have thought that our plans would be so predictable? We have the best coach of our generation, apparently.

  • Was Tredwell caught fraternising with Pietersen ?

    Or has Moores just forgotten he’s in the team ?

    • I think they just don’t like spinners. England could really do with the likes of Nathan Lyon in all 3 formats.

  • Even Etheridge has come round to our way of thinking…”They should throw the laptop in the bin!”
    I think “Brand ECB” should have a double take in their thinking and let England play 50 overs and the opposition 40…that might level the playing field a bit?

  • Yes, the Aus anthem isn’t really “marginally less silly”; it’s more like considerably less silly, maybe “nowhere near as irrelevant, offensive to normal human beings who don’t believe that any Gods who may be in the area should especially protect one privileged individual, nor believe in this bizarre form of eugenics or bloodline supremacy & ancestor worship upon which it’s based.

    I was just trying lamely to be polite to the hosts.

    I could have commended their fans for singing the anti-monarchist Blake before each game, but I’m afraid I can’t bring myself to.

  • Stat of the day – both Root and Thirimanne dropped on 2.

    (The catching on both sides was pretty poor.)

  • Well if the cricket media had been paying attention for the last few years at some of these issues instead of their obsesive hatred of a man from South Africa maybe we could have seen some changes. Instead it was all our fault on the outside of cricket. We only cared about KP and should be ignored.

    The cricket media have been cheer leading for a rotten governing body,who have appointed lousy people in charge of cricket who think bonding and group think is more important than talent and skill. The domestic game has gone backwards as the ECB put all their eggs in wealth extraction from international cricket. The game is dying off in many sections of society. No longer played in state schools and completly invisible to many youngsters who might be interested in trying it.

    If a country with the size of population and financial resources of New Zealand can do it there is no excuse for English failire. In fact it is an embarrassment and a scandal that we are so incompetent.

  • I am going to be positive….

    Oh crap, I can’t. I just can’t.

    Do I have any Kiwi in my family tree? Does having every Peter Jackson movie count?

      • actually understand Jackson is considering making a follow-up to his cult early hit ‘Meet the Feebles’. It could be called ‘Meet the Feebles II’ and covers 4 years in the life of a calamatous cricket team, including the signing up of a media channel and the bizarre relationships within the team and with the media. There’s plenty of gore, deception,lies and shootings …..

      • Bad Taste, Braindead, The Frighteners, Heavenly Creatures… all of ’em. Even the bum-numbing extra-long Tolkein ones. Didn’t Braindead have a bit of cricket at the start?

        Yep, Meet The Feebles 2 sounds like a winner.

  • Couldn’t bring myself to watch because of the dire predictability of the result. Brand ECB response probably will be to tinker with batting order and suggest changes to the game format. I suggest a new 10-over 1-a-side game. We could field, well…..Root?

    This really is pathetic and tragically it is all about management and coaching and little to do with talent and commitment. I don’t believe it’s about KP or AC (or, now, EM, for whom no doubt the calls for dismissal will begin to appear). It’s about the wretched spreadsheet-based performance-metrics coaching style of the England team, idiosyncratic selection criteria and decisions and simply incompetent management overlaying a group of impressive young players who need(ed) some simple direction, camaraderie and team development rather than Orwellian doublethink.

    We shouldn’t be rebranding the ECB we should be disbanding it.

    • England ODI cricket has been the same for decades, despite all the different players who’ve played in the team during that time. I think it’s safe to say that the players aren’t the problem…

    • We desperately needed a change after Flower. Instead the ECB chose continuity. They wanted a bloke they knew wouldn’t challenge them and wouldn’t Rock the boat, a good old boy they already knew, instead of somebody good. As people on this site know I’m ambivalent about Pietersen, but he was the scapegoat to satisfy post ashes bloodlust. It didn’t work out that way because they bungled the whole affair, and simply increased the pressure on those who remained.

        • That Colin bloke will say anything now because he’s got get-out clauses: the coaches and the selectors, and the proviso that he plays county cricket. But…

          Outstanding Coach Of His Generation Moores will be flushed away soon, as should Heck Of A Job Downton. The selectors? Whitaker, Fraser, and Newell – not much worth gripping onto there. So… maybe that particular pig will fly.

      • Yes James, the ECB acted like the FA all those years ago when they wouldn’t have Brian Clough because they wanted a yes man. It’s typical of most English governing bodies. They are stacked with men in Blazers who want no challenge to their theifdoms and freebies.

        But it isn’t just the coach. The whole way English cricket has been run for some time is the problem. Cricket is in decline and the ECB have taken short term measures for the money rather than spreading the game to more people.

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