That’s How You Do It!
See, I did say we could do it! Obviously Colly showed the England side my website before sending them out there and it gave them the belief they could do it!
Quite how they performed so shockingly in the previous two games was difficult to believe when I woke up this morning to see the England batsman imposing themselves on the Kiwi bowling attack (Vettori aside). They hit the gaps, kept the scoreboard going and despite a rain interval always seemed in control of chasing down the target. Hopefully this performance bodes well for the rest of the ODI series and we’ll see a decent competition between the two sides.
We won on the Duckworth Lewis method due to a bit of English weather affecting things - I still don’t understand how the D/L method is fair but I guess no-one has come up with a better idea yet. We lost 3 overs of batting, but the target we had to try and get was only 6 runs less. It seems a bit stupid, but I guess that’s an argument for another day. And it probably will appear again on this blog as the league I play in has seen it fit to introduce it as a method of sorting out rain affected fixtures in the coming season….
Speaking of cricket which involves me getting off my arse and actually doing something – nets start this Sunday which could be an interesting sight! Is it me or is February just far far too early for a club cricketer to start netting?!
Gray Nicolls in 2008
Another in the series of 2008 equipment, today I’m looking at Gray Nicolls!
Nothing revolutionary for this traditional company on the face of it, with just a slightly updated look throughout most of the range. They put out some good quality kit despite it not being particularly leading on the innovation side.
Probably their most popular range of the past couple of years, the Predator, has been superseded, and on the face of it the Nitro looks like the replacement. The shape of the bat looks similar, albeit with some more modern graphics. However, when you see one of these bats in the flesh, you’ll be surprised at how they’ve made the edges as huge as they are yet kept the bat amazingly light. Maybe a bat for the batsman who likes to nick through the slips!!
The Fusion has been a success in the modern world of enormous bats, and helped by Matty Hayden using one to great effect in all international cricket recently. I very nearly bought one of these last year, but I was worried the bat would be too heavy over longer periods of time (academic really, I was never batting for a long time!). A cracking bat though and if I was in the financial and skill position to have two separate bats, this would be one of them I reckon.
The Viper was never a big seller, but has been updated and is the lightweight bat in the range for the player who looks to play more nimble and who wants a bat more similar to the legendary “GN Millennium”.
So, nothing that immediately jumps out and screams “buy me”, but good quality kit and a fan base that will keep returning will see another decent year for Gray Nicolls. But where is the excitement, the “wow” factor?!
England Outclassed Twice
Get ready for another happy posting from me! After the success of the Twenty20 series our hopes were raised that things were moving in the right direction. However those thoughts have come crashing down on a slope steeper than the one I suggested New Zealand were on in my previous post (oops!).
Each of the first two games were compounded by one main thing - the complete inability to build an innings as a team and set a target which would test the Kiwi’s. In the first game, the pitch caught us out a bit, but these guys are professional and must have a plan of where the runs are going to come from. You know that players like Oram and Styris are going to bowl wicket to wicket, so the top order guys must know how they are going to counter that by using the crease, attacking at the right times etc. They didn’t do that, the run rate got completely stifled and players got out to bad shots. Not forgetting the fact that we had three run outs as well! At least with the ball we got a few wickets and showed a bit of fight - Stuart Broad in particular, but we were never going to win with the runs on the board. The areas we were bowling in weren’t quite right, but the Kiwi’s came out and showed how to bat aggressively in a one day game and taught us a lesson.
We didn’t learn though, and the second ODI was just plain embarrassing. Luckily I won’t be in this evening to see the “highlights” , but I saw the end of the game this morning and I’m just so frustrated that the team which looked so good a week or so ago now looks like its forgotten how to play. This game was even worse than the first one, with the bowlers taking a tanking as well. Admittedly they didn’t have much to defend, but they seemed to try and bowl shorter and shorter, which just meant getting dispatched further into the crowd by McMillan and Rob Key’s fatter brother Jesse Ryder! A couple of dropped catches, a missed chance or two for direct hit run outs just compounded the fact that it was a shockingly bad day at the office.
I don’t know where we go from here - after the first game there was already talk about shifting the team around a bit but the selectors resisted the urge but the team needs a bit of a shake up after this. Quite why Ravi Bop continued to play though is a complete mystery to me when Dimi played well in the Twenty20 and Ravi didn’t even bowl in the ODI’s following.
Then remember to bowl in one day mode -” keeping things tight and put the pressure on the batsman would be a start. Then the main thing is the batsmen need to step up to the plate - in particular KP needs to justify his billing as a world class player and now would be a damn good time to show that class. Its not that different out there to UK conditions, so why we appear to play like a bunch of numpties I do not know.
Anyway, I promised a happy posting and here comes the happy bit; We can do it, we can beat them. Just for some reason at the moment its not happening and the Coach and Skipper are the ones that need to start turning it around.
England in Series win!
Just two games in and England have already won a series in NZ! Ok, so it was only the twenty20 2 game series but it is still a series! I didn’t see any of the first game, and have yet to watch the highlights of the second, but the overwhelming feeling I’m getting is the Kiwi’s are on a step hill, one of the downhill variety.
They’ve lost so many key players in the past few weeks and months, ones that they could rely on to provide the goods whilst the rest of the players quietly have an impact on the game despite not being the ’star’ players. We should have won the series like we did, and we should win the upcoming series now having seen what we are up against, but that is by no means a certainty.
I can’t really go into individual performances having not seen the games, but lets hope it will put us on a decent platform for the upcoming ODI’s! If you have seen the games and have a quick opinion about any player’s performance stick it in the comments section and let me know what I’ve missed!
England in NZ
I’m glad to say that come Tuesday, England will be back in live action - its felt like ages since we last had a result to care about and I’ve been watching bits of Australian and South African series, but there is nothing quite like having an England result to talk about!
We start off with a Twenty20 game followed by some ODI’s, and for once our team is looking ok (yes I really did say that). There is a decent bit of competition for places and in the warm up games there are a few people scoring runs and taking wickets which bodes well. Its true to say that NZ are really struggling for players, with some out injured like Vettori - and their star bowler Shane Bond being unable to play due to signing up to the rebel Indian Cricket League. And when the test matches come around Styris won’t be playing either as he has decided to concentrate on the ODI’s.
I’m actually away this week for a bit so I’ll more than likely miss the first game and I won’t be able to post, but if I get the chance I will!
So all in all, its a tour we should come away from with some positive results, and if we don’t then there will be some people held accountable, but I’m not going to be too downbeat unless that happens!
I’ve signed up for a fantasy league thing at cricinfo based on the above series - its free to enter if you fancy your chances! I’ll let you know how well I get on!
P.S A couple of days ago on the 1st Feb, this blog became one year old! Hopefully you’ve enjoyed it for however long you’ve been reading and I hope that it goes from strength to strengh!
