England who looked a clearly if not overwhelmingly better team than South Africa in the Test Series are struggling in the ODIs. Although ODIs are always a bit of a lottery and resultantly less important, there can be some clear reasons found for this change.
The first one almost stares you in the face - Andrew Flintoff - or rather the lack of him. True he did not set the World alight with the bat in the Test series, but his bowling at crucial times was invaluable. If not a couple of key wickets there was always guaranteed a tight spell to pile on the pressure. That is exactly what England have missed him in the ODIs. In the second at Bloomfontein, the way South Africa choked received worldwide attention - what was forgotten was that at 1 point England had a fair chance to win comfortably but did not have the bowling to blow out the middle-order. That came back to haunt them again in the 3rd ODI and at Cape Town the "attack" was positively shred to pieces as it was today at East London. Truly, Flintoff was missed with the ball.
But was he missed with the bat ?? Maybe not. The kind of innings Kevin Pietersen played today would have been difficult to better even for Freddie. Before this match I thought he was fairly talented but perhaps got just a bit too lucky at the start of his career. Also, the likes of Atherton kept stressing about certain technical deficiencies - well to hell with technical faults if you are capable of playing an innings like that !!! Under intense pressure chasing a target of 300 and coming in with the team in dire straits it was simply great !! And deserved to be on the winning side.
When Freddie does come back, the idea of the pair going at the bowlers together promises to be a mouth-watering prospect.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment