One of the reasons why it’s so hard to win Test series away from home these days is the ridiculously short period of time touring sides get to prepare. You arrive in the host country, play a couple of scratch sides missing their best players, and then you’re straight into the Test themselves. It gives the battle-hardened home team a big advantage. It’s almost unfair. England’s first warm up game on this New Zealand tour seemed typical. We played a side packed full of...
Back To Balanced?
Is this tour a new start for England’s test team? It’s beginning to feel that way. We have a new head coach, who has made some encouraging noises thus far, and better still England are likely to take the field at Mount Maunganui with a balanced XI for the first time in a long time. When Ed Smith took over as national selector he wanted to play what some might call ‘total cricket’. There was an emphasis on trying to revolutionise the game by picking a plethora of all...
Fluffy Pillow Or Guava Fruit?
After England’s run glut on day one of their warm up match at Whangarei it was the bowlers’ turn to get stuck in on Wednesday. Unfortunately, however, they got stuck rather than stuck in. It was an all too familiar tale when England travel overseas and the bowlers are handed a Kookaburra ball. The opposition changes but the result is frequently the same. This time it was three Kiwi kids with just a handful of first class games under their belt that made us blush – 19 year old...
Top Order Runs? We Swear By ‘Em
At last! Some red ball cricket. At last! England’s top order actually made some runs. Both have been a long time coming. Yes it was only against a ‘New Zealand XI’, which could mean absolutely anything when you think about it, but how refreshing it was to see the overnight scorecard from England’s first warm-up ahead of their two-test series against the Kiwis. England finished a shortened first day on 285-1 with both Dom Sibley and Zak Crawley scoring unbeaten centuries...
Fun In Aukland
I had to laugh when I saw the score in the deciding T20 at Aukland. Of course it was going to end in a tie. The only surprise was that the super over managed to produce a clear winner this time. One wonders what might’ve happened had the super over ended all square. Would they have bowled another over? Would there have been a boundary count-back? Or would they toss or coin / have a singing contest / determine the match according to the average height of the players’ wives? The...
Dangerous Dawid
Nicely done lads. England levelled the T20 series in New Zealand this morning with a brilliant performance that must have left the Kiwis feeling shellshocked. When I turned on the TV and saw that we’d set the hosts 242 to win my eyes almost popped out of their head. It was the 11th highest score by a major international side in history. And it was England’s highest score by some distance – beating the 230 we scored against South Africa in Mumbai during the last World T20...
