Or "creekit" as Sir Geoffrey would call it. A game once played only by the Commonwealth members, the sport is spreading to such far outposts as Afghanistan and Nepal (mainly due to T20), and that can only be a good thing can't it?. Australia, once the best in the world, have had a period of shitness but seem to be on the way back after thrashing England and then winning a series in South Africa. India; superb at home but travel about as well as a barrel of Guinness. Sri Lanka; See above. West Indies; A once great nation in the sport, the advent of satellite TV means that the kids now watch the NBA and NFL rather than play creekit on the beach, and that's a shame. South Africa; Because of Aparteid they were in the wilderness longer than that lion in Born free, there's still not many black players but when the selectors travel more they will be a force. New Zealand; "It's not rugby so we're not interested. Much". England; We've just sacked Kevin Peitersen and reinstated Peter Moores as the head coach. Oh dear!
Glad Robbo wasn't taken up as assistant to him or god forbid head coach! We need him at Sussex thank you!
I'm not convinced Peter Moores is the answer. I know he had the big fall out with KP during his last tenure and the word is he has got the respect of the other England players, but I just think we should have aimed higher and got a coach in from outside of England. Kirsten from South Africa maybe?
All the coaches of IPL teams earn what they would in a year for England during the IPL tournament, why would they do a job for a year to earn what they could in a couple of months?
The glory of guiding a team to an Ashes victory? To coach a team playing South Africa in Cape Town with the Table Mountain as the backdrop? To go to the Caribbean for a winter and listen to the Barmy Army in full voice at Barbados? To be No.1 in test cricket? being a selector and picking the right side?
Looks like batting coach, Graham Gooch has been sacked. After a meeting with Cap'n Cook and new gaffer Peter Moores, he's been told to clear his desk. Not that he had one, but you get the idea. Good move I move. Get rid of all the deadwood from that disastrous tour and start afresh. Bowling coach David Sukar (sp) has to be next..
A limited overs game in Aberdeen? Rain affected? Surely not? Anyway, 50 overs quickly turned into a 20 overs bash and we beat the Scottish by 30 odd runs. Bell got a nifty 50, Cook got a cautious 40. In reply some Scottish lad hit 42 off 16 balls, including five maximums. It's a good job he didn't hang around like..
Take a bow young Mr Jordan. Twould appear we may have a new and exciting player on our hands, and Captain Cook says he's even better at the four day game. He'd make our tail look darn impressive if he could become our third seamer at test level..
It's the 2nd episode in a series of five ODI's today between England and Sri Lanka. The game is being held in the frozen wastelands of the north of the country where the maximum temperature will be 16 degrees. I'm sure the visitors will find it hard batting with thirteen jumpers on. Cap'n Cook is out, Carberry is in.
Mumbai Indians need to chase down 190 in 14 overs to qualify. 20/1 off 1.1 so far. Could get interesting!
Well that was more than a bit shit wasn't it? It looked like we'd done OK to keep the Sri Lankan score so low but I don't think anyone saw that coming. 99 all out, Morgan and the extras getting almost half the runs. We've gone from being Ashes winners to one of the worst cricketing teams in under a year. Impressive.
Says it all when we take a wicket then try to get Bopara through his overs (end of 33rd over) In the last 10 years England have played 234 ODIs, well have started 228 of them. In those matches that have gone the full distance (no worthless duck method) England have won 81.25% where they've taken all 10 wickets, 71.43% where they've taken 9 wickets and only 15.84% of the rest (16/101) Kinda shows a link between wickets taken and winning, England also happen to have lost 66/69 (95.65%) where they've been bowled out compared to 33/117 where they haven't (28.21%) England have remarkably only lost 7/31 affected by worthless duck where a result (won/tied) has been returned, and won 74.19% Oh and of those 216 ODIs where a result has been achieved, the side taking the most wickets has won 181 (83.8%) and lost only 10 (4.63%) Yet England for all their resources, and you would have to assume analysts, insist on containment over wicket taking far too much.
That's because economy rate is everything these days. We need to find some match winners who try and take wickets rather than look for a decent line and length. ben Stokes is a good example and he's nearly fit so should feature in at least two of the games that are left..
Bopara only conceded 40 runs off 9 overs, but we needed wickets at that stage not economy. All economy translates to without wickets, is wickets in hand with overs to go and acceleration. The way to keep the runs down is to take wickets, as the Sri Lankans proved yesterday and we proved in the first ODI. I'm just working my way through those results adding in how many PROPER bowlers we had, so far in results against Australia since and including 2004 we won 40% with five bowlers, 36% with four bowlers and 20% with three (proper) bowlers. Make up overs bowlers include Collingwood, Wright, Bopara, Yardy, Shah, Solanki and even Vaughan and Trott.
I think we've found a match winner. That was some comeback by England. I know winning the toss helped because the conditions were always going to mean that our sultans of swing would get the most out of the wicket, but to bowl a team of Sri Lanka's quality out for 67 is an incredible achievement. Get Jordan in that test team, now..
