yeah I know…
… the usual claptrap clichés are coming out of the England camp they’ll probably take the positives from it. Is there anyone out there think the England cricket team will learn anything from this humiliating capitulation to Pakistan in Dubai?
Well they’ve probably learned that you can’t go into a test series with no warm up matches, which is a lesson that’ll stand them in good stead going into the next match isn’t it?
What else have they learned? Well pretty much probably everything that anyone with have a clue has learned about England well before this screw up. We all know they really can’t play in an area east of the Suez and west of Perth. You shouldn’t be losing a test inside three days in Dubai, you really shouldn’t lose there at all, all the games should be a full five day, huge score on the board, draws.
We learned that a player just being called a spinner has England batsmen crapping themselves. Said player doesn’t actually have to spin the ball, no matter how much he straightens his arm in his throwing action it’s just the fact he’s classed a spinner that means England find him unplayable.
What we learned was that if Cook and Trott fail then a batting collapse is gonna happen. Why is that? Well Prior and the the occasional tail ender apart none of the rest stand up when the going gets tough. We learned that Pietersen needs to be dropped. He needs that kick to his ego or we’re gong to get the same crap from him both shot wise and that pathetic “it’s who I am, it’s the way I play” post fuck up witterings. Yes Cook also tried to hook and it led to his dismissal, the difference being Cook can hook, Pietersen has shown time and time again he just gets suckered into doing it and gets out.
Then the main chokers. In his Daily telegraph column today Geoffrey Boycott stated about Eoin Morgan that…
Eoin Morgan is overrated as a Test match cricketer. I know he is a superb one-day batsman but under pressure in Test matches he doesn’t cut it…
Making runs in Test cricket is no big deal. Morgan made a hundred at Edgbaston against India last summer, but everyone was at it then against a poor attack. It is making runs for the team when you are in trouble that is the mark of a quality player. Geoffrey Boycott
He’s right but the main problem is the over-glowing praise he and many others handed out to Bell in 2011, when the above statement can be made exactly the same with Bell’s name replacing Morgan’s. Against Australia Bell picked up easy runs after Cook and Trott had done all the hard work and destroyed the opposition. It was pretty much the same against India, except Trott was missing and as Geoff says everyone was doing it. There was no pressure he didn’t have to stand up and be counted. Which was good for him because so many times in his test career when he’s needed the most, as in both innings here, he’s failed and failed miserably. But the Sherminator
gets a free ride from his media chums.
But what we all learned from this debacle is that, world number one or not, England just don’t win without a good Yorkie – Bresnan…