One major worry about England’s one-day team

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< 1 minute read

They aren’t due. Aren’t remotely due. This occurred to us midway through yesterday’s run-chase when they were a few wickets down. While they eventually overhauled Pakistan’s total, that’s only postponing the problem.

Yes, there are arguably players who haven’t scored too many runs recently, but unfortunately for them, England aren’t due as a unit. Alex Hales in particular has selfishly plundered the team’s stockpile of runs leaving little for anyone else.

The next step on England’s one-day journey (yes, journey – everything’s a frigging journey these days) is surely to become more adept at rationing.

DON'T BE LIKE GATT!

Mike Gatting wasn't receiving the King Cricket email when he dropped that ludicrously easy chance against India in 1993.

Coincidence?

Why risk it when it's so easy to sign up?

15 comments

  1. Fear not, KC.

    “Dueness as a unit” is the exact inverse to “momentum as a unit”. They cancel each other out.

    That is why both of those phenomena are almost impossible to perceive.

      1. Thanks, KC, although there’s something a bit faint-praise-damning about the word “somehow” in there.

        If an infinite number of monkeys sat in front of an infinite number of PC keyboards, one of them would, somehow, post an excellent point on King Cricket. (I know, I know, an infinite number of them would…)

  2. If it makes you feel better this team isn’t actually winning any more than the ODI side from the two years after the 2011 world cup. Mainly because these days, it’s the bowlers who are ‘due’.

    That side, with Anderson and Finn taking new ball wickets and Swann going well regularly bowled sides out, which was why they had a ‘safe’ batting approach, as they were sure they’d regularly defend totals of 250-280. They were unbeaten in series at home for 3 summers and made the final of the 2013 Champions’ Trophy. They also whitewashed Pakistan away in 2011-12.

    Now the matches are higher scoring, but they’re not generally more effective. We’ll have to wait and see if it actually sticks.

    1. We wrote something about this kind of thing once. It may never have been published. We can’t remember. It was something about either scoring more than ‘par’ or restricting the opposition to less.

      You need to consistently do one or the other, but you don’t necessarily need to do both. If anything, a bowling side who consistently restrict the opposition to a below par score are better allied to a batting line-up who ensure an average score rather than one that gambles when trying to score more.

      1. Depends on the monkey, Ged. Despite having no thumbs, spider monkeys are expert fruit throwers with long lanky arms. Sure there would be some good bowling commentary there despite their reputation for sledging and chin music. I’ve wandered a bit into the realms of fantasy there, better have a lie down.

  3. Yorkshire bear down on Middlesex.

    Everyone knows you don’t get down from the Bears! you get it from a duck

    1. I read it that Yorkshire’s bear was depressed on having to visit Middlesex very much against its wishes. I don’t think bears like to travel, not least to That London. There’s nothing for them there.

      1. Looks more like a lobster with a rogue unencased brain perched atop it to us. Don’t know what’s happened. Have you used a different email address for these comments?

        Anyone who objects to their auto-generated avatar can set their own via Gravatar, by the way.

        https://en.gravatar.com/

  4. This reply game is truly something special. Ed. Cricket has replied to the wrong comment, but Thesaurusrus has gone one better and got the wrong post.

    Well done everybody.

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