So come on then. What did you make of England’s predictable ODI defeat to Sri Lanka today? Bopara was a positive, Moeen Ali was a humongous positive, but other than that … erm …
For me the experience was all too predictable. The batsmen did their best to chase an imposing total, but we simply don’t possess genuine international class in the bowling department.
I hope I’m proved wrong, but Woakes and Gurney just don’t look up to it.
Tredwell is a respectable spinner, and Stokes a promising all-rounder (although I suspect he’ll always be a little expensive in the shorter forms of the game), but there’s no pace, no mystery and certainly no X-factor.
When it comes to the batting, Alastair Cook is still a massive, massive problem at the top of the order. With every passing day, it becomes more and more apparent that he owes his place to ECB politics and favouritism rather than any cricketing logic. Only England could be so pig headed.
Thank heavens for Moeen, that’s all I can say. The bloke is a gem. The mighty Mo was imperious today. He was stylish and destructive. At least the management have got one half of the opening partnership right.
Before we get carried away, we should remember that Mo is a somewhat streaky one-day batsman. Sometimes he’ll look reckless, and his expansive drives will get him into trouble, but what impresses me is the fearlessness of his approach. He’s so untypically English … exactly what we need.
We should also mention Ravi Bopara’s innings. It was a typical Ravi innings: measured, intelligent, well-paced, but ultimately he fell short (again). One day he’ll finish the job, surely. Why was he dropped again?
James Morgan
Cook is a CROOK
Hi James, almost all agreed, bar two points you made:
1) What more could Bopara have done, given that wickets were falling all around him? He had to have a desperate swipe as the run-rate mounted; he might easily have got away with it.
2) I believe very strongly that Woakes will rise to the top, or nearly the top, given time. He’s a classic English all-rounder, improving slowly in both disciplines until he reaches his peak around 28. The likes of ITB come along once in half a century. Think F.R. Brown, Bailey, Titmus, Illingworth. That’s the way we prefer to do things!
Best wishes
FP
Let’s face it, England are a ten man team now. We are carrying Cook. Even when he scores some runs they are usually at a rate that puts pressure on the middle and lower order to finish it off.
Will the media blame Bopara or Mooen for not finishing the job or will they see the problem is elsewhere.
Just like in the 20/20 World Cup our bowling looks to have problems in restricting teams to lower scores. We better get used to chasing 300 because I think we will be seeing a lot of scores around that figure in the World Cup.
I heard faint praise of chef’s captaincy on Sky, but surely he should have bowled Bopara more? Did the laptops tell him something that watching the play did not suggest? The Lankans were puzzled by him.
The batting order is clearly wrong, if you accept, as we must, that chef will play unless he needs an amputation. Bopara is not a finisher. We have two of them in Buttler and Morgan. Ravi’s calmness and awareness are those of a midfield dynamo.
He should have come in at 5.
He would have kept Moeen on track till the fatigue set in – for two overs, it was a question of when rather than whether he would get out. He could have stopped Buttler getting needlessly over-anxious.
Also, the tail needs to be taught how to work singles. The Lankans kept the momentum with singles and twos. Bopara understands that. The lower order do not. Stokes did not need to try a big hit. If he had just worked for runs, England could have won. Nor did Woakes need to be expansive. He was just not skilled enough to get Bopara on strike.
Nor was Tredwell. When Gurney came in, Bopara had to go large… Blame Chef, Bell and Root and a stupid batting order.
Also, the Lankans had the nuts to keep a slip at the death… It stopped those casual nurdles to third man, thus bottling the singles
Ok so this is a reply to Diogenes (the man the barrel), my computer tends to mangle my replies so that they show up at the bottom of thread. I didn’t watch the game, just kept an eye on the scoreboard, so maybe you are wrong. I suspect not. But what I want to say is: hats off. This is a proper attempt at analysis. It is completely missing from the mainstream, and sadly lacking on blogs. I will sharpen up my act and get out of your light.
Although they might be working the nuts off it, scoring singles is not a strength of ECB house
And I am still hearing vuvuzela sounds…. :(
Mo was awesome, Ravi did well, our bowlers were toothless and 3 of our main batsman failed. Sadly our bowlers don’t put the opposition under enough pressure and our batsman don’t look capable of chasing down a plus 300 score
“what impresses me is the fearlessness of his approach. He’s so untypically English … “.
Loved this article about the English distrust of attcking batting:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/803297.html
It really does go all the way back to WG!
Would love to see Hales in for Cook and Taylor for Morgan. Not going to happen though. Asking for Morgan to be dropped will surprise some but In his last 15 ODI matches Morgan is averaging 22.5. Not good enough, especially combined with Cook (29.6). That is two of our top 5 routinely adding 50 runs between them and seemingly undroppable.
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