England Summer 2017

England v Ireland – The 2nd ODI

LordCanisLupus16 Comments

There have been great mini-series. I rather liked Camarena, The Drug Wars back in the day. There have been less than great mini-series too. This one looks like a less than great one, and there really isn’t anyone to blame for that other than Father Time. When Sam Billings came back from the IPL, spouting nonsense, that the opposition would be petrified of England, the World ranked #5 team in the format, I do believe, I could be charitable and say he was thinking of Ireland. He obviously wasn’t, but let’s be nice for once.

Tomorrow’s game is at Lord’s, which is nice. A load of teams would give their eye teeth to play an ODI at Lord’s, so it’s bloody disgraceful we haven’t up to now. After all they are our near neighbours, a source of some players, and a potential nice little rivalry if cricket develops the way we all hope it will worldwide. But it is what it is, and Ireland will be feeling a lot of pressure after the display at Bristol which wasn’t so much as lacklustre, as totally dull. Only a couple of players did themselves justice, and they’ll hope that more will come to play this time around.

England, in truth, never needed to get out of the low gears. The relative brevity of the game had one advantage, as I got to hear a lot of less of the increasingly annoying Nasser Hussain, but in other facets, it wasn’t really a great run out for England to test their mettle. England did the bowling job well, but these aren’t the top drawer players, and yet we know a number of the Irish can do a lot better. Jason Roy will need some time under his belt (and the irony of the sky punditry giving us the “it’s the way he plays” defence is really not lost on me) and Alex Hales was also extremely fortunate to get away with his early errors. England to bat first would be the recipe for a bit of batting practice, but the way of this world is to do the job in as an efficient manner as possible.

I have to say I never expected a great display from Ireland, so Friday wasn’t a surprise, but I would love to see one. Where we are pushed, hard, and to blow this bloody complacency that I see in certain sections. Tomorrow is just another day, as Suggs and the boys once sung, but I see another grey day for the boys in green.

Let’s hope not. For my big Irish cricket fan mate if nothing else. He’ll be there tomorrow, and if you sit next to him, or near him, you’ll probably hear him!

Comments below……

England v Ireland – The Opening ODI

LordCanisLupus16 Comments

Welcome to 2017’s international cricket season. Welcome to the longest international season any of us will remember here in England. Welcome to the summer that really matters for 50 over white ball cricket. It’s the Champions Trophy at the beginning of June, and we’ve put half our chips on this one. The other half we’ll hold back until 2019. Building. Always building.

Now I know that the 50 over game doesn’t exactly float the boats of all of the punters on here. Sometimes I feel the same, but for all that, I still prefer this to the fluff that is most of your T20 cricket. There are all sorts of games of 50 over cricket, and although it gets a bad knock now because of its youthful, more irritating little brother, there are always things to watch. At least I hope so.

Tomorrow we kick off against Ireland in Bristol (now I know why Lawrence was moaning about a quiet carriage this morning) with, what I believe, is our first ODI v Ireland in England. We’ve been over there a couple of times, lost hilariously in the World Cup in India to them, and there was a game in the West Indies World Cup which, according to some wags, is still going on. There’s plenty of feeling as Eoin Morgan plays against the country of his birth while Ed Joyce plays against the country he once made an ODI ton for. The weather appears to be OK, if a little on the cool side, and there should be a full match. England are without Jos Buttler, Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes. Sam Billings has come back from the IPL and appears to have caught some sort of ailment where he’s speaking twaddle, but he’ll keep wicket, and there are rumours Moeen Ali may well be left out.

I could go on, but I’m trying to watch a dreadful play-off match with my team in it, and really it feels like a bit of a pre-season friendly, but no doubt any good England performances by a “fringe” player will get lauded beyond the stars, and any loss to Ireland, or even a duff performance, will be over-analysed.

Here on BOC we’ll try to set up and report on each day’s play this summer, but it’s a difficult task for us to do with three of us. If anyone fancies doing it for us for some of the days this summer, please let us know.

So, in the age old, time honoured tradition on BoC…..

COMMENTS BELOW!!!!