Big one is tomorrow: England v Australia at Edgbaston but already been a game yesterday in Cardiff (India beat South Africa) and one today at the Oval between Pakistan and West Indies.
Should be a good tournament, no "weak" nations taking part. Just the main eight test playing nations.
Group A: England, Australia, NZ, Sri Lanka
Group B: India, South Africa, West Indies, Pakistan
0
Comments
162-7 with 11 overs to go. They should still get there but must've been worried at 143-7.
Bopara adds a brisk 46 to make the score respectable.
Bell hit 91 one with back to back 50's but that ton after good starts is ever elusive.
Old-fashioned tactics to say the least for England. It is unfair to rely on Morgan, Bopara, Buttler and co to get us up to a par score. I feel England need to move on with the times with regards to the batting. I'm not sure you can particularly change the order, can you drop the captain, someone with back to back fifties and someone who averages over 50 in ODI's at one, two and three.
Anyway, a respectable total if not inspiring ... Let's see if we can defend it.
134 required from 84 balls.
152-7 39.3 overs
Sure we should have scored more runs but I knew 269 was always going to be enough. Without Clarke they just have no backbone.
I'm struggling with our selection and tatics in this summers ODI's. Morgan is not up to the job. Dernbach is not an international bowler, well maybe just for 20/20. Why oh why do we continue to ignore Matt Prior for shorter forms of the game?
And the way we are batting seems very strange. It's all very well setting a platform for a dash at the end but we should be more positive from the off, once Cook was out we slowed down again. It proved today that you cannot rely on getting 75 off the last five overs every match. We seem to be so far behind the rest of world still in one day cricket.
I just don't get what qualifications Ashley Giles has to be in charge of our one day teams? He must to be blame for our shortcomings.
I'm no fan of ODI's generally but this tournament is different. No minnows, no pointless games, no ridiculous second phases or Super Sixes etc. Every match matters and it's all done and dusted in a couple of weeks.
Been impressed with India's batting and Pakistans bowling so far. They play it each other next Saturday at Edgbaston, should be a cracking atmosphere.
I'm going to a few Oval games.
It was important to win today and overall we looked in a different league to the
Aussies. The real stuff starts on July 10th.