Something that came to my mind yesterday... Could it be that they're really going to have turning pitches at Cardiff and this is a way to give Rashid some international experience before that? That would be weird, I know, since they had countless opportunities earlier to make him play - Amjad Khan got the nod ahead of him in WI and Brez/Onions at home.
I think Swann could have been injured - or at least a precaution. He had some fitness issues earlier and missed the first warm up.
Adil was quite impressive yesteray, as was Swann. To be honest, they came to bowl at a fairly easy position since the faster bowlers had taken 3 wickets by then, but they surely did the job. Coming to bowl when the other team is 80/1 after 9 is a very different challenge...
I still think Napier should be chosen ahead of Rashid. If Luke Wright goes out cheaply (and that has to happen at times), we could send him in since KP is a slow starter. Alternatively we could send in Swann, too. I mean look at our side, our biggest strength in any form of the game (apart from fielding) is our depth in batting - we had Broad (three test fifties in 22 innings) at number 10 where as Pakistan had Arafat at 7, and Anderson is way better than any no. 11 in the world. We can afford to take risks and must play fearless cricket - something I've rarely seen from England, sadly.
This is just not cricket. WIndies were never getting anywhere near 150 without Gayle (obviously Gayle would have played the same). But good luck - between the teams still left in contention, I'd rather see Sri Lanka or WIndies win.
Still, unbelievably proud of what they did in the tournament. There's a lot of space for improvement, to be honest - we probably need to change the whole middle order but Wright and Fozzy were the two standout finds in my opinion.
We also need a captain for T20s and ODIs, to be honest. But the only candidates that come to my mind are Broad, Bopara, Swann and Anderson - hardly spoilt for choices there!
Two T20s against Ozzies coming up after the Ashes, so hopefully they'll * finally * try out Napier. Samit Patel better lose some weight by then, since he could be a dangerous T20 player.
July 8th!!!!!!!!!!! Can't wait for it.
-- Edited by Salmon on Monday 15th of June 2009 08:49:57 PM
They had 2 wins, one a really good performance v Pakistan and one a very tight win v India who lost there other matches.
On the other hand, they lost to the Nethetlands !!!! Got absolutely thrashed by South Africa !!!! And to be fair were rather unlucky with the weather v West Indies.
If we were talking Scotland I would have been "unbelievably proud" though a bit annoyed at losing to Netherlands when we could evidently beat Pakistan. But that's Scotland
You taking the mick ? i
-- Edited by indiana on Friday 19th of June 2009 07:34:07 AM
The team was written off before the tourney by most and from there they went on to beat both of last time's finalists and probably didn't reach the semis just because of D/L. Plus there were quite a few positives from the individuals - Foster did brilliantly, Wright played two good innings and fielded well, KP showed that he can do do well in T20, Rashid had a fairly impressive start to career.
Compare this to the disaster of 2007 and I'm very happy! True, they could have done much better, but if they keep exceeding expectations like this, they could become a good limited overs side in a year or two.