Saturday, November 15, 2008

What England should do to make a come back?

To start with it was a disappointing to see England getting crushed by India. Credit has to go to Yuvraj and co. for playing great cricket as India won by a handsome margin.

So can England come back in this series? what should be done to improve the performance is the big question? The first and foremost thing England's management should keep in mind is that in India if you win the toss don't hesitate to bat first, yes due to most of the matches being an early morning start there will be a bit of moisture in the pitch still they are good batting tracks which will get better as the day progresses and may slow down a bit during the second innings. So the first lesson is if KP wins the toss elect to bat first.

The second thing that should be looked at is the strategy as I still believe that thought process is wrong and I keep on hearing from Mooresas well as commentators like Botham that on Indian tracks tall quicks should bang it in but what crap is that as on Indian wickets shorter you bowl more it will disappear out of the ground. The best way to go about it is to allow the ball to float a bit in the air to and try to get a bit of swing by pitching it up. Have Moores and co. thought that Indian wickets are like Perth, Brisbane, or Durban to bang it in? what utter rubbish, also England have to think of better strategies for each batsman as for Dhoni one can have few of the fielders in early on even if it means Dhoni will try to whack it. He likes to begin his innings with singles, with S'wag as I have said before that Anderson should pitch it up further and look to get that inswing going and it was sad to see that even Anderson was trying to bowl a much shorter length. I can't understand all this fascination with short of a length bowling on Indian wickets.

England have to also look at their batting as Prior coming at top of the order may not be the right way to go as he is not capable of getting big hundreds which is so imperative on Indian wickets as the top order batsmen have to fire. So why not have Shah at top of the order and KP at 3 as both can stand still better than others and hit it through the line which is the way to go about in India. Bopara too should come up the order. The one plus was that fielding was ok.

All in all England have to think of better strategies but somehow I feel that Moores is a stereotype coach who has his own impractical theories. I hope I am proved wrong.

No comments: