England win series in Sri Lanka shocker
To be honest I’m quite stumped by the latest turn of events today. I never once expected to be writing this post, and I still can’t believe it, England have won the one day series in Sri Lanka with a game to spare!! The way that we have played over the past few years you really wouldn’t have put money on this happening against most of the teams in the international arena, let alone one of the very best - and in their back yard!
I havn’t seen the highlights of today’s game yet (thanks to that thing called work), but it looks like a good performance with first ball then bat has cemented this historic occasion. There’s a couple of pleasing things from an England point of view, and the first of those is the settled side we’ve played. For so many years we’ve chopped and changed our team from one game to the next, which not only made us feel a bit uneasy as fans, but couldn’t do much to help the players know what they’re position is in the team. The second pleasing thing is the fact that the runs and wickets have been shared around the team. KP hasn’t had the greatest series, yet he scores over 60 today. Jimmy Anderson doesn’t take any wickets in the previous game, but takes 3 today - I think it all helps to show that they are playing well together as a “team” and for how long have we wanted that?!
I hope they don’t change the team for the final game unless there are injuries - another good performance from the same 11 will definately keep the positive vibe going for the future, and dropping anyone right now would seem a harsh thing to do anyway.
Its too early to say what has been the number one reason for this turn around in form - captain, head coach, coaching team etc etc. Lets just enjoy the fact we’ve beaten Sri Lanka and worry about that another day!
For those of you who want to say we only won because Murali didn’t play…… just don’t ok - I’m feeling positive for once!
Woodworm Hard Drive, Mega Bite, Satellite Part II
My previous post about the new Woodworm offerings for 2008 was very popular, so when they released new images of the bats I knew I had to let you all see them! I’m still not sure about the names, but the colours and look of the bats have grown on me, to the stage that I’m starting to quite like them!
On the right I have put together a picture showing the profiles of the three bats - with the Hard Drive on the left, Mega Bite in the middle and Satellite on the right. They look like re-brands of the existing bats, but that’s what marketing is all about! Create a bit of hype, change the look of the product you sell, give it to the right people and watch the sales come flying in (which they will).
I’m not going to give an opinion on how well these bats will actually perform - I’ve not tried one and therefore I can’t. However, Woodworm havn’t had the best reputation for making the best bats and there has been no word on where these bats are actually sourced from.
If you want any more pictures of these bats leave me a comment and I can upload a couple more of the front and back!
England Cricket Team - Jekyll and Hyde
After the first two one-dayers between England and Sri Lanka, we have yet again shown how one day we can make everyone wonder why we watch them, to thinking we are world beaters.
I think we should first actually take a quick step back and look at our opposition. Sri Lanka were runners up in the “real” World Cup back earlier in the year, and they fully deserved that spot. And the last time they were over here they battered us, so taking them on in their own back yard was never going to be easy. Hence I wasn’t very surprised when we lost the first game, but I was very surprised when today we beat them!
Both the games have been won by the team winning the toss and batting first, so it seems that chasing under lights isn’t easy on the slow pitches of Sri Lanka. The team looks ok when winning, with someone coming to the front with the bat, and four bowlers taking 2 wickets each, but when we lose we look toothless. I suppose though that we are getting on the right track with at least winning a game or two - we won’t become world beaters overnight.
Swann had a good game today and showed why he was brought in instead of Monty, with vital runs and some good wicket taking balls - There is now the inevitible talk of whether he’ll stay on in Sri Lanla with the test team or not. I see no reason why not - he seems to know his game and we could always play two spinners. We won’t have Freddie in the team (out until next year), so we’ll have to do a bit of fiddling around with the team anyway. But that is a few weeks away- lets worry about the one day format at the moment - will the run of form be bad-good-bad?!
