England losing warm-up matches at the start of a tour
Seasoned England watchers know that England losing warm-up matches is just an unpleasant fact of life.
It’s like that gnawing sense that something’s very, very wrong when you wake up in the morning. Just reach for your bottle of supermarket brand gin that you keep on the bedside table and it’ll all seem to matter so much less of a problem in a bit.
We used to think that England needed to win all of their warm-up matches and look strong going into the main series, but over time, we’ve just come to accept it.
Paul Collingwood’s comments were good though:
“We’re not going to win many games losing seven for 20. That’s an area we need to look at.”
Yeah, the losing seven wickets for 20 runs side of the game probably does need a bit of honing.
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It doesn’t mean anything. You can’t generalise out to the other formats from twenty/20.
Colly shouldn’t be captain, I thought they’d learnt that. The pressure really affects his form. Why don’t they make Gobby Swann captain of this format?
The ability to lose 7 for 20 is something you are born with. It can’t be coached, and it is not an easy behaviour pattern to eradicate, even for Super Nanny.
I hope that’s Sainsburys basics gin.
Saying you’re going to start fixing your game by clearing up that 7 / 20 thing is like saying you’re going to start the process of sprucing up your house by getting the two-pan mack truck out of your living room.
Colly reminds me of the lad who captained the school cricket team. Probably tweaks a similar “bowels of memory ” thing with the selectors.
But then, that chap at school, lovely lad though I’m sure he was, didn’t lead our school to win jacksh*t at cricket either.