First, let’s talk about tomorrow’s game between Sri Lanka and the West Indies. It is being played at Chester-le-Street. Sri Lanka come into it on the back of a dreadful performance against South Africa, West Indies hardly performed better against India. It’s a clash of two form teams.

Sourav Ganguly announced towards the end of the game today that Sri Lanka were now out of the tournament. They can still get 10 points, and Ward says that they can’t (so I’m assuming wins is the first tie breaker, then net run rate). Oh stuff it, let’s assume they can’t. So this is the first proper meaningless game of the tournament. Please inundate us with comments as the qualification basically boils down to this. England beat New Zealand and the four semi-final places are decided. If they don’t Pakistan will need to beat Bangladesh, assuming India beat Bangladesh in their meeting on Tuesday. More of that later.

Today was a must win for England, and win it they did. They did it in their template fashion – the openers went off on one, one of them made a hundred, consolidation with Root, and some pyrotechnics at the end. Maybe not the full scale fireworks show we saw in warm-up games, or against Afghanistan, but in its own way, against Bumrah and Shami, impressive enough. England made 337 for 7 in their 50 overs. A formidable score requiring a record run chase for the World Cup to win.  If Root had pouched Rohit when he was on 4, it would have been more formidable still!

I have to say, I was raging at the last 5 or so overs from India, and more importantly, in the comm box, so was Sourav Ganguly. There is, I believe, a clause in domestic India coverage that criticism of the international team is to be avoided, but good grief, how could you watch that and think anything other than anger.

England bowled well. They never let India get away, but it was telling that the only six of the innings came in India’s last over. That Dhoni even tried to do it then was taking the michael out of the punters. India started slowly, but Kohli and Sharma were knocking off the 8 an over needed during the middle spell, and with 12 overs left India were just 13 runs behind where England were – and as I said, it was a decent finish to the England innings but not unrestricted carnage. India finished just five down. FIVE. And for three of the last four overs, they seemed happy to push singles. It confused the commentators, and they were, you sense, putting serious bite marks in their tongues.

Sanjay Manjrekar, to his credit, asked Virat about those last five overs, and Kohli batted it away – what else could he do – by saying you’d need to ask those players their thought processes, but then talking some old nonsense about short boundaries, and England being well above par. The suspicions could not, and should not be allayed, but let’s take the most charitable explanation. England bowled well and restricted them, so the target was impossible.

All players owe it to themselves, and their players, to go for the win. India have a proud history, a very good team, with IPL hardened chasers, for whom 200 in 20 overs is something to be relished. 70 off five with five wickets left is something to tee off to attain. India have no real worries over net run rate, are probably nailed on for the semis, so the least they could do was have a go. Sourav was saying you can’t lose that game with five wickets remaining. You just can’t. If you are treating this as batting practice you are selling your fans, the people you need to pay your way, short. If you are taking them for granted then more shame on you. If one of the reasons I have seen has been given, that to lose this helped keep Pakistan out, then more shame them. Dhoni should explain himself. He really should. But let’s be real here. That’s not going to happen. Any Indian friends on here, if you come across anything on the wires in India, do let us know.

Look, I don’t want to take anything away from England. I feared for them today. They were taking a gamble on Roy’s fitness (and naughty that a bruised arm was allowed to be the reason he stayed off the field for the second innings – did he learn that from KP’s calf), but the 66 (aided by a catch off a wide! I’ve been there Jason) was a great start. Jonny Bairstow made a hundred, and well done to him. I loved that he went off on one this week, and the same old bores reacted the same old way (Vaughan – would it have been ok if he’d finished his conference “hashtag just saying”), and then came out and made a century. Ben Stokes was magnificent again – he really is having a superb tournament and showing the complete skills as a batsman he can sometimes show. Root caused some consternation with his knock, but he ensured there wasn’t a cascade of wickets and then probably kept Buttler out of the picture for a little too long, but 337 against India was always going to be a hard nut to crack.

The bowlers started well, and although Sharma and Kohli milked the overs of Stokes and Adil, Plunkett came on and removed Virat and it was pretty much downhill from there. Rohit’s century never seemed to be the killer knock, and even in the late 20s, early 30s overs he was still blocking back after hitting an early four in the over. A couple of barrages of fours might have caused some wobbles, but the wild wahoo just after he completed his century did for Rohit – a shot out of character and out of his class. The way Pant started, I think I would have wanted to get out of there! Had he overdosed on blue smarties, because he was driving me mad? (A word for the catch Woakes took to get rid of Pant, another superb effort).

England play their final game on Wednesday against New Zealand, who have put a couple of poor performances in for their last two games (and remember, were a missed catch by Boult from being beaten by Brathwaite last weekend). England have a dreadful record against New Zealand in the World Cup and will need to end that run. It is very likely that they will need to do so. India play their penultimate game against Bangladesh on Tuesday – a rapid turnaround, unexplainable for this tournament. If England lose, then Pakistan’s game on Friday against Bangladesh becomes the game to focus upon.

England win, go to 10 points, and will feel good about themselves. India will no doubt keep their thoughts to themselves. A penny for them.

A curious day. A curious game. A curious finale.

More curious comments below, please.

Yesterday saw India’s inexorable march towards the semi-finals continue as their bowling attack took apart the West Indies batting unit, all but securing their slot in the knockout rounds.

India’s batting was again good, but not great, with first Kohli and then latterly MS Dhoni allowing India to post 269 from their 50 overs. This seemed at best a par score at half time until India’s bowlers made early inroads into a weakened West Indian batting line up and provided them with the chance to easily close the game out with the West Indian team folding to 143 all out, which is certainly a crushing win on paper at least. From what I have seen of the Indian team so far is that they are heavily reliant on Rohit or Kohli to score big runs, which allows the like of Dhoni and Pandya to come in and hit it to all parts at the end of the innings. This hasn’t happened regularly enough yet, although Kohli does look in sublime touch; however if you can get rid of both Rohit and Kohli early enough, then this batting line does look like it could fold for not many. That being said, the Indian bowling attack has been superb this tournament. Bumrah has to be one of the best one-day bowlers in the world at the moment and has been ably assisted Shami and Panday in the pace department. Their spinners however, look even better with both Chahal and Kuldeep not only able to keep the runs down but also get wickets at vital stages. If the pitches in the knockout rounds closely resemble those that we have encountered this week, then India have to be strong favourites to win the World Cup.

As for the West Indies, this has been a hugely disappointing tournament for them with only Brathwaite, Cottrell and Hettmyer contributing regularly. The West Indies have all the tools to be successful in the one-day format, but actually have the application to display those tools regularly has once again proven a step too far.

In other news, it was a certain South African born, ex-English batsman’s birthday yesterday and to coincide with this, Barney Ronay wrote a very good piece in the Cricketer about it (it was never going to be Simon Hughes, who probably thinks Paul Downton should still be in charge of English cricket):

https://www.thecricketer.com/Topics/premiumfeatures/the_backstop_english_cricket_needs_kp_zing.html

Ronay is a funny journalist, a bit like Jonathan Liew in a way, in that he is very capable of writing some superbly insightful pieces but equally he can also try and a be far too clever for his own good, in that if he was an ice-cream then he’d lick himself. This was definitely one of his better pieces. As this piece might be behind a paywall now, some of the more interesting exerts were:

First, he was right about pretty much everything that got him chucked out of the England team. Yes, everyone plays at the IPL now. Yes, you should just bat like that. And it’s OK to whistle. 

And secondly the ECB is making another mistake in failing to use KP in any role as it tries to build the future, to hurl a grappling hook back to that great lost moment and conjure out of the air the kind of crossover glitz KP understood more instinctively as a punkish 24-year-old than anyone else involved in English cricket.

Ah yes, the whole dressing room culture piece rears its’ ugly head again, you can’t play for England if you’re not from the right family or you’re a threat to dressing room harmony. Talent doesn’t matter, just a willingness to nod when whichever mindless bureaucrat asks you to. After all, why on earth would you be still be playing James Vince if he wasn’t great in the dressing room (which is where he should remain from now until eternity). Non conformists need not apply.

We want skunk-haired glam now, more of it, as much as you have. And Pietersen, the last real star English cricket produced, isn’t involved in running anything at a time when English cricket wants above all to produce stars.

Well yes many of the fans do (and I might conjecture that some individuals would rather set fire to their house instead) but doing what the fans want  and what is good for the game is always a distant last on the ECB’s wish-list, hence why we have this farce of a tournament on our doorsteps putting the very health of the sport in grave danger. Anyway I digress….

As for today’s game, we have a Sri Lankan team who still harbour some hopes in reaching the last four, especially after their recent defeat of England, against a South African team playing for nothing but pride now. Sri Lanka will once again be reliant on one of their openers to get a decent score as well as hoping that Angelo Matthews has batted himself into some form alongside the canny Lasith Malinga making early inroads into the South African attack. As for South Africa, it very much depends if they really want to make a game of this or whether they are mentally packed up and ready for the trip home.

As ever, feel free to leave any comments/thoughts on the below:

 

Any of you wondering whatever happened to Comical Ali, the faintly ludicrous former Iraqi press officer, the butt of many jokes. He may have been such a character, but he was just doing his job. After all, if he hadn’t said what he had, old Uncle Saddam may not have been too chuffed. And when Uncle Saddam got cheesed off, well, it was off with your cheese. Or something like that.

I wonder who is the man standing behind the set at Sky Debate HQ after the performance of the man we like to call Chuckles – Paul Farbrace. If you had just watched the “Debate” on Sky, one could be forgiven for thinking that losing on the three occasions (out of four) England have chased was nothing to worry our pretty little heads about.  Sky’s Debate became more like a North Korean broadcast, with Willis there to be the state agent provocateur. Do not worry, England will be fine, win four games and be world champions. They’ve not become a bad team overnight. Don’t worry.

Well, that’s if you worry about that sort of thing. Past performances of useful idiots like Chuckles, and the Uncle Saddams at the ECB have taken away many of those stomach churning, teeth grinding fear moments from my emotional lexicon. I watched the scores on ESPN Cricinfo, and later caught the “bitesize highlights” and can only say to you good folk, “what did you expect?” My Kiwi colleague in the office keeps winding me up, and wonders why I don’t react as if this is a knife to my gut. I don’t have it my heart to get disappointed any more. How can you be disappointed when an opening bat keeps getting picked, despite keeping on failing, because he has loud supporters in the media and occasionally plays a lovely cover drive. You don’t pick players like that and be disappointed.

Dmitri has been in Paris, and returned last night speaking in the third person and referencing a DJ. I might as well have been in Paris given the visibility of this fixture. It speaks volumes that the organising authorities, absent of making this the opening match of the tournament, sat down at their Ipad, because the mumz and kidz love em, and thought “let’s put England’s biggest match on a Tuesday, right in the middle of the competition”. What a top idea. No, we’ll make sure India have their big three games – Pakistan, Australia and England – at weekends, but make sure this game, the one I think means most to both teams in midweek. You could laugh, if you wanted, but this sport is run by clowns, no matter how much supporting Twitter feeds love to trust these same bodies to run a major competition without alienating fans. I sometimes wonder if the ICC and ECB actually want to alienate everyone outside of India. Mumz and Kidz don’t really need to be “engaged” until next year.

So, England lose and now we work out if we can get by winning one of the last two matches. Chuckles is having none of it “England will be thinking they can win both games” in as stunning an insight as I’ve ever come across in a sporting pundit space. Well, I’d hoped that the world number 1 team would expect to win home fixtures, and I would hope that the world number 1 team wouldn’t be totally bottling it. I would also hope that the world number 1 team, in case you’d forgotten that Chuckles had mentioned it, might have more than the brains of rocks they’ve displayed every time they have been remotely under pressure, and I hope the world’s number 1 team have finally flaming well realised that James Vince is not your man.

But let the real post mortem wait. If we don’t make it, let the real blood-letting begin. Because we need to get behind the lads, who will need to do the basics better, and do an impersonation of Australia, who, by and large, don’t bottle it when they mouth off and walk like they own the place.

Watching Chuckles call all the players world class that he did, and advocating that we should pick Jason Roy if he could walk (more Willis than Chuckles to be fair), seemed funny. But it isn’t funny. England are not playing on roads, are not playing one-off series where teams shuffle the packs, and are now finding out that this is very, very tough.

Tomorrow’s game is between New Zealand v Pakistan. England fans will be cheering on New Zealand with some gusto. They can clinch their semi-final spot by winning, and in doing so will draw Pakistan further away from a semi-final spot. A Pakistan win and the heat will well and truly be on.

Propaganda once sang “sorry for laughing, there’s too much happening”. I am stuffed at work on the run up to my break in a couple of weeks time, Chris is busy with work, and Sean is stuffed too. Danny’s head has exploded over the Hundred. I ventured into a debate on Twitter and instantly regretted it. The World Cup has livened up as England have been found out a little, and for that we owe our team a great debt. Watching the media and the England diehards in the next week or so is probably going to be more entertaining than the cricket. And the ECB will be in church all week to pray for divine assistance. Next up for England is India at the weekend, in Birmingham. I venture that the majority of fans won’t be cheering on England. As Propaganda also sung, the first cut didn’t hurt at all (Pakistan, only a blip), the second only made us wonder (Hmm, two bad days, maybe a bit of a headscratcher), and today, the third has had us on our knees (we might be doomed). England are bleeding, and there are plenty starting screaming.

Comments on New Zealand v Pakistan, being played at Edgbaston, below.

Today saw another pretty one-sided, turgid affair with Bangladesh comfortably beating Afghanistan on a pitch that was well suited to their spinners. The pitch at the Aegeas Bowl has become consistently slow and low as the tournament has gone on leading to some fairly dull cricket for those watching. At least today’s game is the last one to be scheduled at the Bramsgrove Bowl as England certainly wouldn’t fancy batting on that pitch, which was similar to the one at Headingley and it is quite possible England would have collapsed in a heap for 150 all out playing silly shots and aiming for 330 when 260 is a par score on such pitch. It doesn’t look like this will be the case tomorrow after seeing George Dobell’s earlier tweet:

If England’s game plan is to have a pitch that does something for the quicks and if they do plan to leave some of the grass on this, then their plan is not without huge risks as the Aussie bowling attack of Starc, Cummins and company will be licking their lips at the prospect of bowling to a weakened England batting order with some help from the pitch. Even if they do take some of the grass off the pitch, then it would be a huge surprise if there is much turn for either of the side’s spinners, as England no doubt don’t want to be undone the way they were undone at Headingley. Is this particularly fair to both sides, probably not, but in a way, it piles more pressure on this English team to perform tomorrow in the hunt for a semi-final slot.

We now know that Jason Roy has once again been ruled out of this English side, so we get to have the pleasure of seeing James Vince open the innings, play a couple of pleasing cover drives and then get out at slip chasing a wide one for a pretty but ineffective 15. It was Shane Warne who said that Monty Panesar “rather than having played 33 Tests, had merely played his first one 33 times.” The same argument can be made about James Vince who it seems hasn’t learnt a single lesson in his time in an England shirt and is in the team not on merit, but because he has ‘the right values’. Either that or he has some serious dirt on Ed Smith, naturally the latter would be funnier to see. This absolutely has to be last chance saloon for Vince, another failure would surely make his place in the team untenable and anything less than a serious, match influencing knock should not be tolerated. The so-called ‘put up or shut up’ time has come for Mr Vince.

As for the rest of the side, if there is unlikely to be much turn or some grass is left on the wicket, then you would expect England to rest one of their spinners in favour of playing Liam Plunkett, who has the uncanny knack of taking wickets in the middle of the innings. One would suggest that Moeen is at greatest risk, especially after his performance with the bat in Leeds, where it was suggested rather kindly that he has dumplings for brains at times. Rashid is also bowling well, but as is often the case, England have a history of dropping a bowler every time the batsmen fall in a heap, so Moeen’s perceived superiority with the bat might elicit favour. The England selectors normally have a habit of making the wrong decisions, so expect Moeen to open and Root to be dropped!!

As for Australia, they are likely to stick with the same side that comprehensively beat Bangladesh with their hopes that either Warner or more likely Finch can get them off to a flier whilst the rest of the batsmen bat around Steve Smith who will hope to anchor the innings. I still think Australia’s bowling attack is a little weak, especially if you can see off Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins with the new ball, so ideally, they’ll want the pitch to be doing something or to bat first and put runs on the board to create scoreboard pressure for England.

Make no mistake, this is a massive game for England with a loss meaning that they are likely to need to beat India and New Zealand to progress to the Semi Finals. If England collapse in a heap once again, when the pressure is on, they’ll be a whole lot of red faces at the ECB’s headquarters and some pretty difficult questions coming their way. Not that Geoffrey Boycott seems worried with the upcoming game, after all we won 2 World Wars! What a complete and utter plumb!

What? Someone say he wasn’t talking about England’s chances at the World Cup? I must have misunderstood….

As always, please do leave your thoughts below…

After two hard fought and closely contested games on Saturday, which were a great advert for the game of cricket, it was all ‘after the mayor’s show’ yesterday as Pakistan outclassed a poor South African team who are now officially out of the World Cup.

Let’s be totally candid, South Africa have been playing outdated, insipid cricket for the whole tournament with their tactics more akin to those that England were rightly pilloried for after the 2015 World Cup. Once again, many of their batsmen got off to a slow steady start but none of them were able to convert their innings into something substantial, leaving the tail with the hopeless job of needing 12 runs an over plus when they came in. It’s a shame in many ways as South Africa have always been there or there abouts in major white ball tournaments, but a mixture of poor coaching, ponderous batting and strange team selections have left them massively behind the 8-ball. It would not surprise me if heads roll on their return to South Africa and we have probably seen the last of the likes of Duminy, Amla and Tahir (who has bowled pretty well TBF) in their white ball team. Even Graeme Smith was mystified at the approach his team took in trying to chase down Pakistan’s score:

As for Pakistan, this was one of their better days of the tournament. Haris Sohail came into the side and looked a class act with the bat, which has many of us scratching our heads as to why they stuck with Shoaib Malik for so long, with good contributions from the two openers and Babar Azam, who I’m a huge fan of. Their bowlers also offered a lot more control as both Wahab and Amir, the latter of whom is having a stellar tournament so far, bowled with pace and accuracy as well as their spinners bowling with control and good variations. Pakistan are not out of this tournament yet and if they continue to play like they did today, then they are a threat to any team; equally they are also able to fall flat on their face like they did against India, you just don’t know with Pakistan.

As for today’s game, we head back to the Kolpakshire Bowl for a strong Bangladesh team against an Afghan team that were so close to beating India on Saturday. Bangladesh will naturally start as favourites with their star all-rounder Shakib Al-Hasan lighting up the tournament so far, but it will be interesting to see if Afghanistan can maintain the same level of intensity that they showed against the Indians or whether they will be unable to shake the disappointment of Saturday’s result.

As ever, feel free to share your thoughts below: