King Cricket: Another format, another failure for England
November 24th, 2008 by Alex Bowden in England, One-day cricket and tagged cricket, England, India, king cricketThis winter, England have failed at Twenty20, failed at 50-over cricket and last week they even failed at 49-over cricket.
Yesterday, however, they had an excellent chance to turn their luck around in a Twenty-two22 match. We don’t have the exact figures to hand, but England have rarely lost in this format.
Alas, it was not to be. When they needed 20 runs off two balls, we were still quietly confident. But when that became 20 off a single delivery, the game was as good as up. Sure enough, Stuart Broad failed to make the ball turn invisible and thus couldn’t push through for the all-run 20 that would have kept England in the series.
We have a three-point plan for how our national side should arrest the decline:
1. Stop doing Riverdance at the crease. If you’re going to repeatedly miss or mishit the ball, do it from a stationary position. Wait and see where the bowler’s bowling the ball before doing the ‘wander and a jig’ thing.
2. Play ludicrously straight. England hit almost all of their boundaries and lost no wickets when the batsmen aimed at the opposite set of stumps.
3. Unofficially rename power-plays. The word ‘power’ seems to bring about a testosterone-fuelled red mist whenever the fielding restrictions are in place. We’d call the shots played ‘agricultural’ if it weren’t that modern agriculture rarely depends on a man trying to turn himself into a spinning top by heaving a bit of wood around with all his might like a frightened caveman in a knobhead competition.
See King Cricket’s regular blog at www.kingcricket.co.uk. King Cricket is a cult figure in the world of cricket blogs and was TWC’s first Best-of-blogs winner in April 2008.
Posted in England, One-day cricket | 11 Comments »
November 25th, 2008 at 7:54 am
The third point is hilarious…
November 25th, 2008 at 8:03 am
With every column and article given the team copius advice, I can see what the next excuse is going to be .. too much advice from too many quarters confusing the already coaching overloaded team.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Interesting. I’ve come up with 3 other things KP and his men could do to run India close:
http://outsideedge.wordpress.com/
November 25th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Brilliant! I especially like the riverdance one - do these clowns really think it puts the bowler off to jump around the crease like a goose? The indian bowlers must be cheering (as well as laughing) every time they see a batsman do that
November 26th, 2008 at 2:50 am
KC, what would you rename the Power plays to ?
November 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Maybe the ‘whatever you were about to do, do the exact opposite’ plays.
That should ensure better performance from the lads.
November 26th, 2008 at 11:43 am
So we could possibly see Ian Bell do an Afridi and
KP doing a Kallis or a Boycs!
Cant wait !!
November 27th, 2008 at 11:13 am
Knobhead competition has just been voted the no 1 phrase in the world! Congratulations.
Also, get them Wisden b*stards to incorporate Alt text captions in the photos, we need to see more.
November 27th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Agree on the competition Suave - and I know exactly who I’d back from the England team to win that particular accolade
November 27th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
I can think of a few more internationals who would make the final, but you are right Ceci - I think England would have this sewn up.
November 28th, 2008 at 7:40 am
England are crap, that’s why they lose.