Cow Corner Blog

England on the up, maybe

Fri Sep 25 09:58PM

 What a difference a week makes. Last weekend England were down and out, the doom mongers were talking of a 7-0 whitewash by Australia in the one-day series.

Graeme Swann bowled England to victory to save some face against Australia and they duly carried that form on to the Champions Trophy with what was quite simply a thrashing of Sri Lanka.

There's no doubt that Andrew Strauss winning yet another toss played a key part, as the conditions were well in England's favour when they bowled and there was no turn for Sri Lanka's star spinners.

But advantageous conditions or not, England still had to get the job done and they did that in impressive fashion against a team tipped for Champions Trophy glory.

Winning by six wickets with five overs to spare reads well and England can take tremendous confidence into their remaining group games with South Africa and New Zealand.

What they cannot do is let any complacency creep in. That is unlikely given their appalling record in 50-over cricket, but there are things from the win over Sri Lanka that need working on.

James Anderson excluded, the bowling was poor. Graham Onions and Stuart Broad bowled an awful lot of rubbish on a wicket that any seam bowler would like to carry around with them. On a better wicket at Centurion, the top-class South African batting line-up would feast on the fodder that Broad and Onions sent down.

The fielding was sharp and most importantly, the batting passed muster. Anderson pointed the finger at the batters in his pre-match press conference and it would appear that his words had the desired effect.

Joe Denly and Strauss fell cheaply, which can happen, but the sometimes brittle middle order stood firm.

Owais Shah played the anchor role which is often overlooked in 50-over cricket and his steadying influence gave licence to the rest of the batters to counter.

And counter Paul Collingwood did. His place in the team is in the balance, but he rolled back the years with the kind of attacking knock that has been sadly lacking from England. With no Kevin Pietersen, England have looked devoid of ideas with the bat, but Collingwood launched a savage assault on the Sri Lankan bowlers and Eoin Morgan followed his lead with some impudent play.

Morgan has had a poor time in County Cricket, but England have persevered and his 62 not out which steered the team home proved why they have such faith in him.

Chasing 275 will be a different story to hunting down 213, but if the likes of Strauss, Collingwood, Morgan and Matt Prior continue with the attacking intent England may surprise a few people.

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