Curious absence?
Regular readers of Six and Out will notice that posts here have been a little thin on the ground recently. There are a number of factors at work here, I have all the usual excuses of too much work, not enough time, yahda yahda yahda. But largely I’ve been struggling to think of new ways to describe my feelings towards the state of English cricket.
Yes, this is an International blog, and I will comment on International cricket issues, but I really make no bones about the fact that I’m an ardent English supporter, and my allegiance lies 100% with them. I am a critic, but I’m also a committed England fan who wants to see them succeed. So when you consider the recent performance of the English test and one-day sides, it’s proving a struggle to put a new spin on things as they stand. We’ve heard the usual rhetoric - “lots of injuries”, “we’re preparing for the Ashes” and “erm, lots of injuries! Oh, have we used that already?”.
There’s only so much you can take before you start to question things. England’s track-record in prolonged winning streaks is pathetic. If you take a quality side like the Australians, you’ll see a long history of success with intermittent blips where they have the odd shocker. The England side always feels like it’s the opposite - basically poor, with the odd purple patch. And it’s during the purple patch that people forget about all the down-times and speak up England as real side beaters and potential number 1’s in the world.
That’s probably a harsh thing to say because as number 2 team in the world (in tests at least) you need to have performed consistently to achieve such a ranking. But the one-day side is seriously lagging behind, last time I checked it was floating around 7th in the world.
And so, what of the losses in the Twenty20 and the 2 ODI’s against Sri Lanka? Well inevitably the England-camp spin doctors will talk them off with the usual bullshit PR speak - “we need to work harder”, “we will come back stronger”, “we will learn from our mistakes” and “we have a lot of injuries”.
Frankly, I’m not bothered. I’ve written off this Sri Lanka series - that’s not disrespecting them - but it’s over, we’ve been beaten, we know it, so let’s all move along please. Pakistan is the next challenge and it’s important to go in to that series refreshed, revived and ready for action.
But where’s the time to prepare for it? What are the chances we’ll just have a repeat of the last Pakistan series?
Tags: England, injuries, ODIs, pakistan, rubbish, sri-lanka, Test CricketRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Cricket
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