Posts tagged with ‘Paul Collingwood’

Apparantly Paul Collingwood is to miss the Champions League T20 tournament, which starts later this week. He has torn his upper-nurdle, and will play no part.

To all those who hoped to see him performing as brilliantly in the nets as he did during the IPL, this is a great disappointment.

Aside from the 3-0 scoreline, there are signs that the England team just aren’t that into this ODI series. First Stuart Broad and now Paul Collingwood and James Anderson are being rested from the team.

During the course of England’s Test matches, reference is often made to their batsmen’s habit of making starts but failing to convert them into centuries. Generally, blame is placed upon the proliferation of limited overs cricket. Today, England again lost an ODI against Australia, and again a number of their batsmen established themselves, only to lose their wickets. The same trait was their downfall in the 1st ODI on Friday.

Is this a regular feature of their limited overs batting, and what are the reasons behind it?

So, the knee has finally hoisted the white flag and said enough is enough. Flintoff has not recovered in time for the Headingley Test, which starts this morning, and a nation will doubtless be in morning, whilst another one quietly starts to fancy it’s chances with the news that Matt Prior may be out with an injury.

At 198/0 halfway through this first day, England were dreaming of a mammoth score of the type they should have achieved at Cardiff. As it turned out, a dream was all it was, barring more tailend heroics on day 2.

As emotive as England’s late escape was yesterday, the team will be under no illusions – they were thoroughly outplayed. With the 2nd Test following just a few days behind, Strauss will need to regroup his team fast. Here are the areas that are of concern.

They told us he couldn’t bat. They told us it was all over. They hadn’t counted on Monty.

Australia need just three wickets with England 169-7 at tea on day 5. Assuming that they complete the win, the advantage that they have been gifted by England will probably be enough to win the series.

To be honest, this was probably as far as they were expected to get. That they managed to bounce back from the humiliation against Holland was creditable, and the victory over India was a feather in their cap.

Knowing as we did that West Indies’ players weren’t too keen on being here, it is no surprise that England took the ODI series 2-0. And we didn’t learn much about the players that we didn’t already know.