India 285-6 (50 overs) England 158 (36 overs) Don’t worry. I’ll give the wheelie headlines a rest after this. But let’s face it. England’s performance in the second ODI was really, really bad. But let’s not get too downhearted. Nobody wheelie (sorry) expected us to win this series, so the odd bad day at the office isn’t unexpected. With Trott, Swann and Anderson missing, our unproven players struggled under fire. The bowling was always a concern, and our batsmen fell flat on their faces when...
Ashley Giles: From The Bears into the bear pit
This aint like dustin’ crops boy. It hasn’t been the most auspicious start for Ashley Giles. England were thrashed in the first warm up game and beaten soundly by Delhi in the second. Thank heavens we weren’t playing Jaipur and Mumbai too, otherwise things might have got really ugly. It’s all the more embarrassing because England are, if the rather bizarre ICC Championship rankings are to be believed, the best ODI team in the world. Imagine what Delhi might have done to South Africa or...
Lack of foresight will cost us again
‘Hmmm I must remember to pack my Lonely Planet Guide’: Nick Compton will have lots of spare time on his hands if KP goes to India Will Kevin Pietersen play in the test series against India? That’s what everyone’s talking about; that and Australia’s pathetic display in the semi finals of the T20 of course (tee hee). The logic seems to be “KP’s got a central contract now, so he must be picked – otherwise the ECB are paying him for nothing”. However, it’s not quite that simple. When is...
Losing Pietersen would be a disaster
Are the good times over? Lose KP and any advantage we had going into the 2013 Ashes will be lost If I was in a high profile cricket team, and my teammates followed a twitter account that extracted the Michael out of me mercilessly, I’d feel pretty insecure. I’d definitely question whether I wanted to play with them anymore – especially if I was already in dispute with the team’s governing body. I’d be even more tempted to jump ship if I knew there were other clubs out there willing to pay...
So then, England’s tour of the UAE was a success after all
We did it! We won the T20 series 2-1, and won ‘the series of series’ by the same score line. Pakistan might have won the tests, but we won the ODIs and the T20s. Therefore England’s tour of the UAE must be considered a massive success. We even secured an aggregate victory of 6-4 (although it helped that four of those victories came in the ODIs). Now before you think ‘blimey, Morgs has been sniffing the pritt stick again’, I’d like to stress the fact that my tongue is pressed firmly...
The elephant amongst the Lions
If I had a quid for every fan who thinks England should drop a couple of batsmen after the debacle against Pakistan, I’d have enough money to set up my own television channel, re-employ Tony Lewis and Jack Bannister, and put live test cricket back on terrestrial TV. In a way, I can understand where these people are coming from: they see Bell and Pietersen struggling to pick Saeed Ajmal’s doosra and they want blood. There’s just one problem with this rather knee jerk response. Who exactly do...
