Monday 3 May 2010

Duckworth and Lewis beat England

There are plenty of positives to take from England's game today, in fact the only negative is that the Duckworth Lewis rule is imperfect...not to sound too much like a whingeing Englishman!  When Gayle and Chanderpaul came back on they required 30 off 22 balls, completely in powerplay overs when England had racked up the biggest total of the tournament, and then wickets didn't impact the total the Windies had to chase.  If someone has a sensible and rational explanation as to why the number of powerplay overs aren't reduced proportionally when the innings is reduced then I'd like the hear it!  A little silly, but thems the rules and we lost.

The openers gave us a cracking start, OK, they both got out before getting to thirty, but they made it to the mid twenties off 14 and 18 balls and up to the fifth over or so we were going at 10 an over.  Pietersen looked good and will kick himself for getting out, lovely shot but straight to the fielder.  Collie's innings was unusual, he scratched around and played a couple of shots he wouldn't normally early in his innings, and then got out.

And then.....Morgan and Wright, just shy of a hundred partnership off 50-odd balls, they really paced it beautifully, played themselves in and then just went mental.  Morgan's reverse paddle off Rampaul, which just bounced inside the boundary rope was particularly special.  He is a magnificent talent and should be our finisher for a long time to come.

When we dropped to 80-4, the old England side would've panicked and crawled to 130 if we were lucky, but this new fearless England just did the necessary and it was really impressive.  If we play anything close to that against Ireland tomorrow we'll batter them, and it doesn't impact the next round anyway, so no bother!

3 comments:

Wes playforcountrynotforself said...

An idiotic end to a marvellous English performance. England are the winners of the hearts. If you don't love Morgan you must have a rock in the chest. All thumbs and big toes up. Too bad that Ireland will be the casualties on your way to the next round.

Cheers,
Wes

Wes' last blog: Suckworth Lewis

GreenJJ said...

Yeah, it was a pain, but I guess we've been saved by the rain plenty of times, so what goes around comes around! Morgan deserved to be on the winning side, and I can't believe he didn't get man of the match! Its harsh on Ireland that we've nabbed their best player, but thems the breaks! Next on our list: Niall O'Brien, Boyd Rankin and George Dockrell. Thank you and goodnight.

Wes playforcountrynotforself said...

Given that it's gonna take a few years until the latest genial ECB masterplan comes to fruition I think you might have quite a point here.

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