Batty and Mascarenhas at least got us past a few of our worst ever scores. There was no movement on that wicket at all. Bit of bounce but only Fidel Edwards is quick. At one point it looked like we might never use the second powerplay. As it happened, it just meant there were more fielders on the edge of the circle to catch loose shots.
That would have been an embarrassment in a Stanford game.
In the meantime, I'm supporting New Zealand. Great effort to winkle out India for 305, despite the bad luck of Vettori being incorrectly called for a no-ball when he got Dravid out. Ross Taylor is a great slip and Jesse Ryder is the man with the golden arm.
If they can get an opener who can stay in, they'll be above England in the rankings before too long.
They need some quick bowling too, as everyone would admit. However, no-one seems to admit that they have a proven quick bowler, aged 33, who they haven't picked for yonks on the bizarre grounds that he played in the Indian Cricket League- a tournament so unworthy that it finished in time for said player to join the start of New Zealand's tour to England- unlike the Authorized Version. It's perhaps understandable for Bangladesh to be worried about offending the Indian Board, but NZ?
Is Shane Bond seriously unpopular? If I was NZ I'd really want him back.
Well done England, Strauss in particular. If they can win the series it would be a pleasant surprise, even allowing for the Windies distractions over money.
I've wondered about Bond's absence from the NZL side too.
We are staying at the Regent's Park Marriot while the boys are doing their Lord's training, and the West Indies team are staying in the same hotel Sean & Dylan are apoplectic with excitement and appear to have lost the power of speech. Every time one of them passes us in the corridor or the restaurant the boys make these bizarre squeaking, squealing noises.
Definately the coolest cricket players I ever come across, they do everything with the iPod earphones in their ears all the time, including eating and just talking to each other. I guess it's a mechanism for not having to talk to the general public, they can pretend that they haven't heard requests for a photo or a signature.
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