Andrew Strauss is not going to be hesitant to make any decision

It looks like Andrew Strauss is not going to be hesitant to make any decision in his new role as the England chief.

There were talks that Strauss will not be able to work ruthlessly.

But, with his handling of the Kevin Pietersen matter, Strauss has shown that he is not worried about public opinion and he would do what he thinks is in the best interests of the England team.

It would have been very hard for Strauss to call Pietersen and tell him straight on his face that he’s not the guy who is to be trusted and thus, there’s no chance at all for him to be given a recall as far as the international Cricket is concerned.

Pietersen had just smashed more than 300 runs versus Leicestershire and the entire media was hyping him. The pressure was immense on Strauss and ECB to take him in consideration for the New Zealand series.

But, Strauss was very clear what he wanted to do and straightaway after taking the charge, he set up a meeting with Pietersen and made him aware of the situation.

Of course, people will have different things to say on this. Some might think that Strauss took personal grudges into account when he made the call.

But, at least he had the courage to make the call and he was brave enough to come out in the press and explain everything. Continue reading “Andrew Strauss is not going to be hesitant to make any decision”

English top order batsmen must make sure that they don’t go too much

In the test series against Pakistan, the English top order batsmen must make sure that they don’t go too much into their shell against the new ball.

Normally, anywhere in the world, batting against the new ball is the trickiest thing, but, in subcontinent, the scenario happens to be a little bit different.

If you are playing in subcontinent, your best chance of scoring runs fluently is when the ball is hard and new and has shine on it because that’s when you can play your shots on the rise. You don’t have to worry about swing because it won’t be there.

If you are too watchful at the start and don’t take advantage of the hardness of the ball, you will not help yourself as batting will only get tougher and tougher with the ball getting softer and older.

It’s a mistake that England actually made on their last tour to Emirates. Their openers at that time adopted an immensely circumspect approach and just did not score runs when the fast bowlers were on with the new ball only to go on and find later on that scoring against the spinners was virtually impossible.

In one of the games on that tour, England just required 145 to win and their opening pair hung in there for 90 deliveries in that chase. But, what they scored in that duration was just 21 and once they got split, the spinners waved their magic and in a matter of 50 more runs thereafter, the whole team was back in the hut.

Had the openers been a little more attacking there, it would have kept Pakistan in the game.

This time around, England however, has picked an attacking opener in Alex Hales who would not hang back at all and that would do the Three Lions a lot of good. Continue reading “English top order batsmen must make sure that they don’t go too much”

Problems for England Cricket are just not getting any lesser

The problems for England Cricket are just not getting any lesser. Last year, ahead of the World Cup, they found themselves in a desperate position of making a change in the captaincy and now when the Ashes series is just weeks away, they can’t quite decide whether they should persist with the head coach or not.

Peter Moores’ second tenure as England coach has turned out to be an absolute failure.

If the test series against India is barred, England has been pathetic in every tournament that they have played under Moores in the last one year or so.

Of course the coach does not go out there on the field to perform and thus, he can’t be entirely responsible for the team’s performance, but, he remains in charge of the tactics and selections and if those things wrong, then the blame falls on him.

Moores’ selections have been baffling in all forms of the game, whether you talk about playing James Taylor in a finisher’s role in the World Cup or playing Jonathan Trott as an opener in the third match of the recent series against West Indies, they were all rubbish decisions. Continue reading “Problems for England Cricket are just not getting any lesser”

James Anderson absense got Australia Win against England

The England bowling line up could not quite come to the party in the One Day International game against Australia yesterday in the absence of James Anderson.

England only had 234 runs to play with. So, they needed to get into the Australian middle order early, but, that did not happen.

They instead lost the plot in the first power play. David Warner attacked, as he normally does, and the visitors seemed to surrender pretty soon.

Broad, to some extent, bowled with fire, but, Steven Finn was a disappointment and the questions would be asked now if a left arm fast bowler would have been a better choice than him as he would have brought some versatility to the attack as well. Continue reading “James Anderson absense got Australia Win against England”