West Indies 113-5 (20 overs) England 88 (16.4 overs) Windies win by 25 runs
Nobody likes to lose, but when people look back at the summer of 2011 they won’t remember this game at all. It was just a footnote to the main event. I doubt even the Windies fancied travelling to England for two futile T20s at the end of September. Given the choice between autumn in London or a beach in Barbados, I know where I’d rather be.
Having said that, the game was of some interest because so many stars of the future were playing; therefore it was a good opportunity to see the likes of Hales, Stokes and Borthwick in action. Some did well, others didn’t. But overall, what we’ve learned is that ‘you win nothing with kids’.
Once we lost a few wickets chasing the Windies dismal total of 113, the youngsters panicked. All we needed to win was singles. What we got was four brainless run outs. I believe the expression is ‘D’oh!’
So which youngsters turned heads with their performances, and which ones turned stomachs? The star of the show from an England perspective was Scott Borthwick. The promising leggie took 1-15 in four overs, and then made an elegant 14 with the bat.
The England management have a man-crush on Borthwick. They seems to love him even more than they dislike Adil Rashid. It’s easy to see why. He runs up to the crease like an excited puppy, has above average control for a leg-spinner, bowls a decent googly and can obviously bat a bit too. What he doesn’t seem to do, however, is turn the ball much. Well you can’t have it all I suppose.
Ben Stokes also made a few runs. There’s something a bit special about him. He strikes the ball cleanly and looks very stylish. He’s just a little bit too raw for my tastes. He’s definitely got the talent, but needs to learn his trade. He looked like a precocious colt promoted to the school first XI prematurely. There were a few ‘wow’ shots, and a few head-in-hands moments too.
The least said about the rest of our young batsmen the better. Bairstow was unable to repeat his heroics from the final ODI, and Hales was unable to rekindle the magic from Friday night. However, at least Joss Buttler showed a good temperament until he was needlessly run out.
As for the Windies, they’ll welcome their victory. It must be hard to travel half way around the world for just eighty overs of cricket. One thing’s for certain, the schedulers at the English and West Indies cricket boards don’t seem to care a lot about their carbon footprint.
James Morgan
Its refreshing to watch young English players with flair and confidence. England probably would have won the game if they had played Trott or Bell who would have scored a safe 30 runs but its good to see the likes of Stokes being given a chance. All of the youngsters need to work hard to make the next step up but its a good opportunity to get a taste of international cricket. Its possible that all the young batsmen are fighting for one or max two places in the ODI squad so there should be some competition between the players. You have to feel sorry for Rashid – he has gone from the next big thing to possibly 7th choice spinner for England.
I was at the game. It was surprisingly good. The Windies innings was a bit dismal, so England’s collapse actually made it a bit more interesting. It was really like watching a club game, though, rather than an international. A few observations:
Tim Bresnan is bloody quick – much quicker than he looks on tv.
The WI bowlers are not quick. I would genuinely have fancied a bat against their seamers (wouldn’t have said that a few years ago, even in jest).
If the WIs hadn’t sacked all their best players it would have been a lot more entertaining.
The fielding on both sides was top-notch.
Their new left-arm spinner was really rather good.
Samit Patel is still fat and looks as if he’s going to have a heart attack every time he has to run.
South-West trains should really have a look at the schedule, and possibly have more than one train an hour when there are 22,000 extra people getting on at Vauxhall….
I agree about Bresnan – he always looks quicker at the ground then on TV. Why is that?
Not sure. Some bowlers are like that. Freddie was too. Maybe it’s being big and strong there doesn’t seem to be much effort in what he does, maybe it’s what they call a ‘heavy ball’. Perhaps just an optical illusion. Who knows?
When I interviewed Flintoff last year, he said that Bresnan was probably the closest thing England had to a like-for-like replacement for himself. He argued that Bresnan was a very underrated bowler, who was a lot quicker than he looked on TV. Fred said he’d faced some genuinely quick spells from Bresnan in Roses matches.
Maybe Bresnan doesn’t look quick on TV because people don’t expect it from him. He used to be military medium when he burst on the scene as a 20yr old (so people don’t associate him with pace), and he looks like a giant teddy. He’s hardly snarls like Craig McDermott, or Big Merv after someone’s stolen a chip from his plate.