All in English cricket, beware!
Uncle JRod is right!
Cricket Australia (CA) has sent spies to disrupt English preparations ahead of the ‘all-important’ Ashes season.
The spies, coming under the names ‘Claydon’ and ‘Thorp’ have knocked out the first 5 wickets of the MCC team, including the England hopefuls Vaughan, Key and Bell.
All is gloom and doom for the Poms!
Bring back Darren Pattinson! ;D
With all due credit to Mike Holmans of the Cricinfo blog, Different Strokes, it just seems like bad news to English limited overs cricket that they won the bilateral series against West Indies.
Why?
Because they happened to be extremely lucky in that Duckworth, Lewis and Dyson gave them quite some assistance in their wins.
None of those wins really left a feeling in you, something like “Wow, England were absolutely great in that match”, not like the feeling I’m currently having looking at the scorecard of the second match between SA and Australia (where Australia received a right royal thrashing).
It just gives Strauss a good chance to give that ‘Colgate smile’ of his and say “Hah, I’m the first English captain to win a series in the Carribean”.
Also the fact that Strauss was given the ‘Man of the Series’ award seriously smacks of stupidity. I mean, one good innings gives you the MoS? He reached his hundred in the second match only near the 45th over, which is quite gobsmacking.
Perhaps it’s because he played fairly well considering he’s made a comeback.
However, this win creates some serious headaches for the selectors ahead of the World T20 Championship, who would’ve wanted a good excuse to fire Strauss as limited overs captain so that they could get someone else better.
There isn’t anyone better in the team, so I would propose a left-field selection such as Rob Key of Kent or even Dimi Mascarenhas of Hants (who actually is in the team on merit).
I’ve heard good things about both, and perhaps it’s time for the English selectors to be more adventurous. Get your asses movin’, selectors!
Off Cutter 