I know the game didn’t matter in the context of the competition but it was good to see England finally get round to winning a game in this ICC tournament. The Windies may have already qualified but they seemed serious about winning this one, and from their perky fielding to the performances of Bravo and Gayle they looked like a team in form and long on confidence.
I thought England would never do it- after a good start Strauss losing concentration and then Flintoff holing out when he looked to be in and full of runs, and then the needless run-out of Bell followed by the dismissal of Collingwood next ball… you thought they would contrive to lose it. In the end it was Pietersen’ lofted off-drive for 6 off Bravo that took them level, and you knew that even England couldn’t lose it from there.
The victory may not signify that much but it was pretty interesting for a one-day game, and Pietersen’s innings was good to watch – he hung around for a while, keeping his wicket intact, guiding the team to victory by three wickets.
With his ego and his love of the big stage I suspect that Pietersen will revel in the Ashes series, playing in front of Australian crowds.
England just aren’t getting this ODI thing. It was a lacklustre performance in Jaipur against Australia .Once Bell was out some accurate non-width stuff from Johnson and Watson eased through the middle-order, and McGrath was able to come back and build up his confidence – the match was a useful work-out for the 36 year-old.
Anderson and Mahmood ran in well – the latter’s dismissals of Gilchrist and Ponting briefly raised some hope.Yardy was tidy and delayed the inevitable but Harmison was short and generally poor, playing in Martyn at the start of his innings. For their own sense of pride England should try and put up some kind of performance in their last match of this competition against the West Indies.
Good to see the Windies beat Australia today, with young quickie Taylor doing the business. This ICC trophy and one-day cricket stands a chance of catching on with games like this. Not sure how good the result is from an England perspective. Their best chance of winning on Saturday against the Aussies was catching their opponents in an over -confident mood, and rolling them over, but the Australians will now be ready to bounce back.
The match against Australia on Saturday has a significance for England because it’s seen as an Ashes preliminary, a chance to grab the upper hand or not to concede before the test match contest begins. One-day cricket for England supporters is rapidly reaching the stage where its only significance is in the larger context of a test series, particularly the Ashes. This isn’t a good thing, and the only way it will change is when England put together a decent run of form in a one-day series or win the World Cup. The prospect of the latter is now more remote than it’s ever been.
