SportsShoes Blog

What a complete joke England were in the Stanford Twenty/20 competition. The completely bottled it and got taken to the cleaners by a well organised Stanford XI (which was pretty much a West Indies team with 2 exceptions). Pieterson said they had been distracted in their preparations and that the players mind was not focussed on the game. Personally im not having that excuse, if you can’t motivate and focus yourself in a game for your country and for $1million each then their is something seriously wrong. No matter how much of a circus it looked like and ended up, the England boys should have been able to get themselves fired up and seriously motivated, especially after all the hype in the media leading up to the event. But in true English cricketing form we bottled it when it counted most. Maybe the confidence and belief we all thought Peiterson had instilled in England isnt quite what we thought it was. They just have to bounce back strongly in India next month.

And also well played to the Stanfors team. They looked well organised, fired up and on great form. They outplayed us!!

Well seen as I’m not doing much as far as training goes due to a possible stress fracture in my lower back I thought I would talk about Australias defeat to India in the recent test match.

Now as an avid England fan I love to see the Aussies lose and it is looking like they aren’t the Cricket super-power the have been for the past 15-20 years. They’ve lost Shane Warne (pretty much the greatest spin bowler ever), Adam Gilchrist (one of the best wicketkeeper-batsmen ever), Glen McGrath (arguably the best and most accurate fast bowler ever) and also several other highly rated players (Langer, Gillespie, Kasprowicz, Martyn, Tait) were not playing for various reasons. There are 5 players missing from the Ashes team who whitewashed England last winter. This will have caused quite a bit of disruption for them, with so many new faces in a team which has barely changed in about about 5 years. The departures of so many world class players has left them floundering a bit. They have struggled to replace Warne with a genuinely class spinner, they have a couple of new faces but they are no where near Warnes class, yet. Brett Lee is now their strike bowler but does not have the deadly accuracy of Glen McGrath at the other end, which helped form a deadly partnership which could rip through any batting line up in no time.

Their batting does not now have as much depth as it used to when they had Gilchrist coming in at number 7 or 8, a luxury any team would love. They still have world class batters like Ponting and Hayden but the line up does not make bowelrs hearts drop quite as much as it used to. I’m not saying that they are now a poor side or that they are going to be easy t o beat in the next Ashes but they look as though they have a few more cracks in their armour and they have more weaknesses we can expose, as long as we are on good form.

If both England and Australias form keeps going the same way it is now then we have a serious chance of regaining the Ashes. We are a team full of confidence and we are on a great streak of wins.  India this winter will be a stern challenge and is the real acid test for Pietersons captaincy, he will have to get the most out of his players against a team who are on great form and in some of the hardest cricketing conditions around. The Australian team should never be written off as they always have match winners in the team but it will be interesting to see how their relatively new-look team gels over the winter and whether the new boys can cement places or they will have to keep looking for replacements for some of the greatest players ever to wear an Australian cap. Fingers crossed they don’t find the next Shane Warne before next summer!!

No Cricket for me this weekend, bit on the damp side on Saturday. Good to see England winning, and with KP at the helm i think it could be a prosperous new era. He’s got the right attitude and doesn’t seem to fussed about what people think, he’ll be his own captain and hopefully put a bit of fire in the players bellys!

Well well well, England did an awesome job for most of a test match! We managed to rack up a more than reasonable total. Pieterson, Bell and Cook looked in great nick and Broad just keeps getting better. I can’t believe Bell got himself out on 199, thats criminal. Then we bowled them out for under 300, great performance boys. But then they shut up shop and didnt even try to get the runs when they followed on, which is fair play, very boring but fair play. I think this test shows that England lack diversity in their bowling, if the conditions arent right for swing we’re struggling. We need some out and out pace, like Freddie or Simon Jones, we need more aggression! Get Freddie back in the team for the next test and we should be laughing, I dont think the South Africans will pose us a much trouble as we might have thought.

Well its about time England broke a record for something! The Test team has been unchanged in 6 Tests which is a new world record!Its about time we had some consistancy, they have a had a revolving door selection policy for years. So many conty players have 1 or 2 England caps its a joke. The Aussies did not have the world beating team they had for 10 years by getting rid of you as soon as you have a bad innings or get a bit of tap when your bowling. They had about 13 or 14 playrs that made up their test team for years and look how good they are! Admittedly it isnt all about keeping the same team, they’ve had some awesome players, but they knew where they stood. They didnt have to worry about getting 100’sand 5 wicket hauls to stay in the team. In England if you werent ripping the heart out of the opposition straight away that was it, you were out. And they brought in someone who was playing well at county level, and most of the time they struggled. The step up is a big one, and when your expected to make waves thats alot of pressure to handle. So im all for a this new found consistancy in selection, it helps with team spirit, confidence and gives players faith in their management.

Lets see if we can survive a battering from South Africas nasty fastys. The most hostile bowling line up in the world apparently, it should make for an interesting summer!