Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Preview – England


England’s performance in big tournaments has been disastrous – to say the least. The inventors of Cricket hasn’t excelled or dominated the game for a long time. Not even in T20 cricket, they’ve been outstanding. With so many domestic cricketers in their player’s bank, England should have ruled the world cricket, but that hasn’t been the cause.

Nevertheless, Paul Collingwood – The English Captain pledged to “surprise a few people” (I don’t think he meant winning the tournament). Still, home conditions & crowd (?) (When India plays against England in England, it seems the match is being played in Mohali or Mumbai & not Manchester) will give them an extra edge over other teams. It should enable them to leave behind the feeble efforts in 2007, where they were able to defeat only Zimbabwe.

Strengths

Young guns like Graeme Swann, Ravi Bopara, James Foster, Graham Napier & Eoin Morgan have brought freshness in the team. Though senior pros like Kevin Pietersen, Paul Collingwood, James Anderson and Owais Shah are capable of performing well under pressure.

Weaknesses

Absence of Andrew Flintoff will hurt them badly. I agree that he wasn’t very successful in IPL, playing for Chennai Super Kings; still he had that ability to bowl just the perfect yorkers & hitting big sixes – when they were most required.

Opportunities

To show the world that they can play good cricket (let it be T20) & come hard in big tournaments like this. They have exciting young cricketers & experienced guys, who can turn a game on their own.

Threats

Choking is one of the biggest threats to their campaign. If one wicket falls, other follows this trend & if one bad over comes (while bowling), fielders & following bowlers crumble under pressure. Also England – as a team shouldn’t care about Pietersen’s personal comments about himself "I'm not very good at Twenty20, am I?” They should rather concentrate on what other teams are not good at.

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