O.K. Riiight, what went wrong there then?

Even in the undistinguished annals of English one day cricket that was just about as embarrassing as defeats come.  Entering the game we were on something of a high after a comprehensive series of victories over the West Indies, and England were actually being talked up in some quarters as potential World Twenty20 Champions.  Hmmm.

Now we’ve really managed to usher in our own tournament with a real bang, by managing to orchestrate an almighty cock-up, which no doubt has gone down brilliantly across the rest world game. 

At one stage with Ravi Bopara and Luke Wright going well, England were 100-0 after eleven overs – so without indulging in too much hyperbole how did we manage to turn such an overwhelmingly dominant position into ignominious defeat?

 

Foot off the gas

Having worked their way serenely into a strong position against a team of ‘minnows’, England thought the game was won, and the intensity was lost in the batting 62 runs were scored in the last nine overs as the middle order failed build on the early impetus.   No problem, we got to 162, and after all it was only the Netherlands wasn’t it?

 

Spinning heads

I haven’t heard why Adil Rashid played ahead of Graeme Swann, but if was a conscious decision rather than injury related, it smacks of huge complacency.  Swanny’s an experienced cricketer who has been bowling superbly for England in all forms of the game, whereas Rashid is a very young man just making his initial steps in international cricket.  If the idea was to give the newby a gentle introduction into the tournament against the whipping boys of the group it was sadly misguided as four overs for 1/36 reveals.  If he was picked on merit it was just plain daft.

 

Throwing it away

I saw one of the county sides in the domestic Twenty20 (I forget which) talked about targeting two run outs in every innings, I lost count the number of times a direct hit in the field would have added a crucial wicket – including several times in the last over.  They all missed, It’s a basic skill, but hugely important.  Add in a couple of dropped catches and it all adds up to double fielding practice tomorrow.

 

What’s important now is not to over react, if England can beat Pakistan we should still qualify for the Super Eights on run rate, the line up won’t change dramatically (although we need KP and Swann back in the side), and we’ve still got some strong performers, but what’s clear after this shambles is that there’s absolutely no margin for error now.