ICC Cricket World Cup 2015

England v Sri Lanka.

England won toss and bat.
Their batting record at Wellington is incredibly poor in ODIs.

Tonight this has to change.
The last three scores have been 123 all out, 130 all out and 89 all out. So then we have every reason to be bursting with optimism................. er not .
I'm off to hide behind the sofa .

Edit: Early update: England 42/0 off 5 overs.
Bell dropped by Chandimal already.

Edit: Further update: 71/2.
Ali and Ballance with tame dismissals.
England starting to get stifled and hit their way out of trouble with no real method.
We have seen this all before .

21st match of the World Cup

Pool B
India v United Arab Emirates (at Perth)

United Arab Emirates 102 (31.3 ov)
India 104/1 (18.5 ov)

India won by 9 wickets

England are lucky to be just two wickets down.
So far there's been 4-5 dropped catching chances.

Current score 83-2 16 overs

England: 232/4 from 44 overs.
Root 102 not out.
England need a mad dash in the last 6 overs.

Edit: And the mad dash was forthcoming as England have ended their 50 overs on 309/6.

Over to the bowlers.............

Oh dear.
Oh dear oh dear.
Oh dear oh dear oh dear.
Sri Lanka win by 9 wickets with 16 balls to spare.
I shan't go into the gory details.
It was painful enough to watch never mind describe .

The result was predictable. England's batting & bowling attack was predictable.
So I'm predicting that England's not going further than the next round (and that's only if they manage to win their next two matches) and that the manager will get the sack.

I thought it would be good to find something positive to post about England, so credit to Joe Root for his 121 against Sri Lanka (although he was dropped at slip on only 2). But Gary Ballance's horror World Cup continued with another low score and he totals 36 in 4 innings.

23rd match of the World Cup

Pool B
Pakistan v Zimbabwe (at Brisbane)

Pakistan 235/7 (50 ov)
Zimbabwe 215 (49.4 ov)

Pakistan won by 20 runs

(01-03-2015 13:26 )Charlemagne Wrote:  The result was predictable. England's batting & bowling attack was predictable.

The bowling is the big problem. It's been far too predictable and easy for the opposition to play against.

Anderson's World Cup record is terrible. 15 wickets in his last 20 matches at an average of 61.33 and 9 of those wickets have come against Bangladesh or Associate nations. He hasn't taken a wicket in his last 4 matches against Test-playing opposition.

(02-03-2015 09:01 )William H Bonney Wrote:  

(01-03-2015 13:26 )Charlemagne Wrote:  The result was predictable. England's batting & bowling attack was predictable.

The bowling is the big problem. It's been far too predictable and easy for the opposition to play against.

Anderson's World Cup record is terrible. 15 wickets in his last 20 matches at an average of 61.33 and 9 of those wickets have come against Bangladesh or Associate nations. He hasn't taken a wicket in his last 4 matches against Test-playing opposition.

I guess what we are doing is not out thinking the opposition when we are bowling and at the same time not bowling deliveries that they don't expect to get i.e. varying deliveries, I also I do think we have the players to win games but certainly we are not producing performances that are worthy of our Test nation status. It seems like a long time ago since won the T20 world cup, but how do we move our game forward to regain that kind of status of being hard to beat?