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England have to beat West Indies

Posted on | March 17, 2011 | No Comments

It is now the moment of truth. If we don’t beat the West Indies and go through to the quarter final a lot of the joy from winning the Ashes will be dissipated.

The reason for that is after being so good in the Test matches in Australia, at this World Cup we have been poor and at times downright bad.

It is no good friends, supporters and ex-playing colleagues saying we are better than we have played because that is not true. Statistics don’t tell everything but they don’t lie. We are a damn good Test match side but a poor 50 overs team playing at times lousy cricket. Coming into this tournament in the ICC ODI championship we were ranked fifth, that means there are teams better than England.

I am not confident of us beating West Indies because there are not enough players in form. James Anderson is a shadow of the bowler we saw in Australia and if the truth were told, on his World Cup performances, he doesn’t deserve to play.

Michael Yardy is a nice lad but he has been a buffet bowler. So between them there have been 20 overs of rubbish. Two fifths of the overs bowled by England have been easy to hit. Matt Prior’s wicketkeeping and batting have gone backwards and one of our best one-day batsmen, Paul Collingwood, can’t make a significant run.

On top of that one of our best one-day bowlers, Stuart Broad, is injured and those are just a handful of the problems we face. Perhaps England need to play a few fresh faces and get a bit more energy into the side.

You can’t win matches consistently with two or three guys playing well and the rest not shaping up. So far either the bowlers have bowled well and the batsmen failed or the batsmen have done well and the bowling lacked control. It has to change fast but time has almost run out.

Article reproduced with kind permission from the Daily Telegraph

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