England flattered to deceive! That I am sure will be the comment on many a cricket fan’s lip. And I am afraid they are not very far from the truth either. After beating the two top teams in the group England crumbled during the crunch games against New Zealand and Australia. Whilst most people felt that the game against New Zealand wasn’t important to England I am sure it was deadly important to them.
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They desperately would have wanted to win for one simple reason! And that was not to get Sri Lanka in to the Semi Final but to avoid their recent tormentor Australia at least in the penultimate hurdle! Alas what happened on that fateful day was something very much against their plans and also was the key in upsetting Sri Lanka which they did so masterfully. And with Australia’s thrashing of them in the Semi final England have shown us that the bubble of the new spirit they appeared to have in South Africa even without Kevin Pieterson and Flintoff has burst and it is a case of back to the drawing board and catch up cricket for them scenario.
As for Sri Lanka one would have never hoped to see them enter the final four through the back door. Certainly that wasn’t the plan. Though the players in desperation would have been willing for a miracle that way and then a Semi Final place, I don’t think major teams play their cricket that way. For established teams such as Sri Lanka it is obvious their route will be straight forward and not through the unopened back door!
Concentrating a bit further on the Sri Lankan fortunes I feel that it was a combination a few things that led to their downfall. The normally reliable bowlers were the ones who had to bear the brunt of it in the New Zealand game and of course the moving ball was the cause to huge extent against England. Whilst fielding was another area concerns have been shown, I also feel judging by the surfaces which we saw on TV that the final team composition for the two important games too were questionable. One definitely wondered the wisdom of going in with just two front line seamers against England in conditions that suited the seam bower extremely well.
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| Australia's Peter Siddle celebrates the wicket of England's Luke Wright during the ICC Champions Trophy cricket match between England and Australia. REUTERS |
At least by the way the ball moved around it appeared an ideal track for the seamers as Anderson, Broad and the rest showed us. On the other hand on a dry track which appeared to look brown I am sure Sri Lanka missed the second spinner and that too in the form of the greatest in the world Muttiah Muralitharan.
However whether it was Murali who opted to stay out or was it a team decision is something we don’t know. But on available evidence the Kiwis would have been under pressure facing Muralitharan whether there was turn or not as that is the kind of psychological advantage Murali holds against batsmen around world. On that score to me the dropping of Murali seemed strange and a big mistake the Lankans did.
And talking about the Kiwis, haven’t they surprised not just themselves but the rest of the world too? After being beaten in Sri Lanka in the Test and the ODI series and then being easily trounced by South Africa in the first game, their resurgence has been remarkable. The victory against Sri Lanka was brilliant and when it matted most to hold their nerve and beat England in a rather low scoring game was as good.
To me New Zealand cricket has been all about team work. It has been evident that there are no dominating players or the big stars in the likes of Tendulkar, Jayasuriya, Muralitharan, Jayawardane, Ponting or even an up and coming Umar Akmal in their line up. But what one needs to appreciate is the manner the entire team tends to rally around each other and responds to skipper Vettori in making things happen.
If it was the batting against Sri Lanka with almost all of the top batsmen getting their act together it was the very gentle medium pace of Grant Elliot who undid the English. It has been that kind of an effort that has got them so far and who knows a continuation may see them tilting the odds in the rest of the tournament which includes just the Semi Final and the Final!
Roshan Abeysinghe is a leading cricket promoter and an international cricket commentator |
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