No surprises that Aussies stream-rolled England in the first test. All the hype that the English media had created, about this England side giving Aussies a run for their money, has gone to the cleaners.
To their credit, England bowlers did manage to take 20 wickets, but they should have restricted the Aussies well below 380 in second innings. But then if u drop 6 catches against Australia then there is no way that u can even put up a fight. For me that is not the problem area because I don’t expect England to repeat their poor performance in the field. The major concern for England is their batting. It was abysmal to say the least. No team can face McGrath on a pitch like the one lords had panned out this time around. But my gut feel is that on a better track English batsmen will be able to him. They showed glimpses of the same in their second innings.
The biggest problem which they have is facing Mr Shane Warne. None of the English batsmen had any clue what Warne was bowling. I have seen the great leggie trouble batsmen in the past but the way he troubled English players was something different. I thought that England will do their homework on Warne but it seems that they neglected Warne completely in their team meetings. There was no plan whatsoever on how to face the man. They were just not able to pick the straight delivery. The only man who stood out of was the debutant Pieterson. May be because of his Hampshire experience but he was the only one who was actually picking the straight delivery.
So in spite of the fact that Lee and McGrath pose great threat, if the English players don’t find a way to tackle Warne then there is no way they can even draw a match leave alone winning it.
Also why Michel Vaughan is in the English side is a mystery to me. He is worse than Ganguly !!
1 comment:
hey salil,
you are perfectly right. they don't know the skill called nimble footwork. i mean however hard you plan it in the team meetings, you either have it or don't. englishmen don't have it, with the admirable exception of pietersen. of course he doesn't play warne as well as some of the indians do,(this was evident in 1 spell of warne round the stumps. the way he padded was flawed & warne could have found an opening between his legs. the way to do it is the way rahul dravid or sachin tendulkar do it, kicking it with a fully streched front leg & backfoot anchored in the crease, instead of having both feet in the crease stuck together trying to avoid a slit between them )but better than a lot of non-subcontinental players.
the other major decisions that backfired on them was leaving thorpe out. amongst all the hype of hoopla of tussle between thorpe & pietersen, i was in favor of voting for both & getting rid of ian bell. a test average of 297 or whatever doesn't matter at all if bulk of it has come against bangladesh.
i believe as a neophyte you need an attitude of pietersen or a pathan or you need to be a seasoned campaigner to face the aussie song.
but all in all it was a real fascination to watch warne weave his web around them, something that i was quite accustomed to in the mid 90s.
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