Oh dear. That was almost a complete calamity. The words ‘do I not like Orange’ kept swirling around my head. But luckily one man stood up and said “I will not play like a complete buffoon today”. That man was Moeen Ali, whose precious 41 saved England from an utter Kabuls-up.
England actually started off ok. We reached 42-1 in the first 5 overs before James Vince, who was deputising for the crocked Alex Hales, chipped a simple catch back to Nabi. Things then got worse when Nabi nabbed another wicket off the very next ball: Morgan shouldered arms to a straight ball and was bowled. Hmmm. It wasn’t the skippers finest moment.
The situation then went from bad to worse when Root was run out in comical fashion. Root looked at Stokes; Stokes looked at Root; both of them seemed to run; then one changed his mind; both looked utterly confused and suddenly Root was on his way back to the pavilion. Ouch.
When Stokes himself fell cheaply and then Buttler departed, we were starring down the barrel at 57-6. Thankfully however, Mo restored some order: his shot selection was exemplary and he got enough support from Jordan and Willey to help us scramble up to 142.
Although England would’ve been relieved to reach respectability, Afghanistan could’ve chased the runs if they’d batted well. Unfortunately (for them at least!) then lost a couple of early wickets to the excellent David Willey and gradually started to panic. Their inexperience showed.
Once the Afghans were reduced to 35-4, the result was never really in doubt. They couldn’t keep up with the rate and seemed more concerned with making the score respectable than anything else. This was something of a shame, as they only lost by 15 runs in the end. I’m sure they’ll learn from the experience.
As for England, our campaign moves on. We’re not exactly showing any consistency – I really don’t understand how we can chase 230 odd against Steyn, Rabada and Tahir yet struggle against an associate nation – but that’s what makes following England exciting. You never know when the next glorious triumph or dismal capitulation will occur.
Hopefully it will be the former when we play Sri Lanka. But I say that more in hope than expectation. Thoughts?
James Morgan
While its possible to be a better or worse team. T20 is largely a roll of the dice on every occasion as evidenced by how close the teams are in the ratings.
These things are going to happen from time to time but its possibly one of the attractions of the sport.
as mentioned, this format is for the heros/villans type of cricket. one day all is great, the next they flop. it is what makes the format entertaining though.
I personally prefered this game to the SA slog-a-thon because this was a good contest but then others prefer watching people just hit the ball out the ground.
Moeen had an enormous slice of good fortune when he was LBW on 20 (TV ball-tracking showed the ball hitting the inside of leg stump) but umpire Ravi didn’t give it. He gave the resulting single as a run so presumably thought there was an inside-edge, but there wasn’t.
It didn’t make much difference yesterday but Morgan is a wizard with the coin – that’s 11 out of 16 T20I tosses he’s won. He’s also won well over 50% (23/38) in ODIs including six out of seven in the last WC.
The pitch in Delhi didn’t really misbehave – it just didn’t come on like Mumbai. The ball that bowled Stokes kept low and that was about it. If SA beat WI, England play SL in Delhi and will need not only to win but to up their NRR. SL are really down at the moment but their bowling is well suited to this sort of pitch. It should be interesting!
In the other match, India scraped past Bangladesh with good bowling redeeming some poor batting and woeful fielding. If Kohli fails, they look eminently beatable. The tournament looks wide open.
Perhaps Morgan’s toss record shows that the ‘luck of the Irish’ is a real thing :-)
Morgan’s form is a real worry. He looked scratchy against SA and yesterday was a man whose head looked a bit scrambled.
Problem is that in tests and to a certain extent ODIs there’s generally an opportunity to spend a bit of time at the crease and find form, you can’t do that in T20.
Sides also seem to have worked out that blocking off behind point stops his release shot so he’s struggling to rotate strike to get going.
Also, will somebody tell Ben Stokes that he doesn’t need to try and break the ball. In tests he times the ears off it and hits sixes. For some reason in T20 he seems to feel he has to split the ball in two.
I completely agree re: Stokes. His limited overs batting record is actually pretty poor. A change of approach could be needed. He can time the ball so beautifully that there’s really no need for him to thrash at everything.
Flintoff thinks he (Stokes) should open in T20
Hard to justify leaving out either Hales or Roy to be honest, but I would be happy to experiment if one of them were injured.
I’ve said before I think he should open in all white ball cricket, especially 50 over. If he knows he’s got 20/50 overs to bat, think he would make bucketloads of runs. His S/R is never going to be shabby.
It would be tough on Roy/Hales but I think Stokes is better than both of them. Not sure if Hales could bat down the order?
I think the Roy and Hales have generally got a good record at getting us off to positive starts so I don’t think that needs tampering with.
I’d love to see Stokes come in a bit higher, maybe to switch with Morgan who doesn’t seem to be able to play the “scoreboard ticking over” role anymore and could be more dangerous focussing purely on being a finisher.
For all Stokes’s talent, it seems his most notable batting innings have been in tests and Buttler is the most proven “dangerous” batsman that we have. Although perhaps moving him up the order in limited overs could have a similar effect to that in tests?
Exciting tournament – bit worried that SA will beat WI and even if England beat SL will go out on run rate.
Still if they do, I think they would go out with some credit as it seems everyone but NZ has stumbled. It’s just a case of getting the batsmen and bowlers to play well in the same game…
The crowd for the match, if anyone was wondering, was just over 2800.
For the England/Afghanistan match Simon?
Yes (source: Tim Wigmore on Twitter).
I’d be really interested in some other attendance figures – the only other one I’ve been able to discover is 61,000 for the India/Pakistan game.
Not sure that 171 is going to cut it against SL…..