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This is very much a red-letter day. England pass 300 in one-day internationals very rarely.
Where other nations are forever launching sixes and sailing past 300, England are usually batting quite sensibly for a bit before thinking ‘OH MY GOD! WHAT ABOUT THE RUN RATE? WE’VE TOTALLY FORGOTTEN ABOUT THE RUN RATE’.
The run rate’s rarely that bad, but the minute one of the batsmen thinks this, the rest of his team mates all take their cue to start spooning catches to mid-on. It rarely has anything to do with the bowling and usually has everything to do with batsmen thinking ‘OH MY GOD! WHAT ABOUT THE RUN RATE?’
There was some proper slogging in there too. In one-day cricket, this is very much a good thing.
V enjoyable although the lack of an Owais run out was a bit of a disappointment
How often do 600 runs get scored on what everyone was calling a slow/low wicket..
Who did the pitch report? I bet it was the pickle brained fucknut, because that looked like a belter to me.
More than made up for though, Ceci, by a slew of West Indian run-outs, including for extra laughs another Morton / Chanderpaul affair. The original is still worth the eight minutes or so on YouTube, not least for the bit where they avoid each other.
England have now conclusively proved themselves to be far-and-away the best don’t-really-want-to-be-here-uninterested-captain-disgrace-for-a-cricket-team-beating side in the whole world. It’s just a short step now to becoming a world’s-best-team-beating side. Fortunately, we have a few days in which to build up.
Anyone else notice how much happier the side looked without KP and (dare I say it) Flintoff?
They’re just too Hollywood these days – I’d prefer a team of Bresnans any day.
Bert, maybe we should cancel the Ashes and get some more don’t-really-want-to-be-here-uninterested-captain-disgrace-for-a-cricket-teams over instead.
How about a tri-series with Zimbabwe and Kenya?
D Charlton – to be fair to KP, I had noticed him really encouraging and applauding the new boys during the test series. And he has visibly taken a step back from the fore since losing the captaincy, so I do believe he buys into the team spriit.
However, I would agree with you on the Fred front. I think there were too many years where he was allowed to get away with anything he wanted. Fletcher even admits he voted for Fred to have the captaincy in the 06/07 Ashes despite wanting Strauss because he was concerned about the disruptive influence Fred would be if he didn’t get it. It’s just a shame we don’t have another strike bowler quite like him.