Graeme Swann believes England has suffered in the ongoing World Cup because of their decision to reshuffle the batting line up.
According to Swann, when you change the batting positions of the players so close to the tournament, they get a little confused how they have to go.
World Cup, frantic build-up and then an anti-climax. That seems to be the way things work when it comes to English sporting endeavours, yet we never learn from our mistakes. We allow ourselves to naïvely become drawn into an unfounded sense of optimism ahead of major tournaments.
Who could forget the national football team’s efforts (if that’s what you call it) in Brazil last summer? Or England’s exit following defeat to France at the quarter-final stage of the 2011 rugby World Cup? In fact, it seems to me that England tend to perform at their best when the pressure is off.
With less than a year to go before Australia prepare to set off for England in the hope of retaining the Ashes, both sides are beginning to plan for next year’s intriguing series.
2015 is set to be a big year, and betting companies such as Betfair, bet365 and the other big ones should expect to be busy with so many sporting events on next year’s calendar.
The Background
After surrendering the famous urn without so much as a fight at the end of 2013, that England team was all but dismantled in the wake of some embarrassing in-fighting and poor results.
The England Cricket Team on the basis of current form doesn’t seem to be one of the favourites to win the World T20 Championship.
The way they have played in the first two matches of the T20 series against West Indies, one should not be shocked if they don’t even qualify for the knockouts in Bangladesh.
There is a lack of balance in the England T20 line up at the moment. They don’t have any experienced finisher and in the shortest form of the game, it’s the finishers who win you matches more often than not.
Virat Kohli scored his 5th test hundred on the first day of the first test match against South Africa which is currently going on at the Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg.
It was a high quality knock by India’s new no. 4 batsman.
It was a typical Wanderers pitch with a bit of green tinge on it and bowling first was believed to be a good choice, but, the Indian captain MS Dhoni surprised everyone by deciding to bat first after winning the toss.
The Australian cricket team is expected to go into the third Ashes test match with an unchanged playing XI. The Kangaroos have been leading the series by 2-0 at the moment. They have won the first two test matches by big margins and they are full of confidence.
Although India defeated Australia in the recently played ODI series but, the Indian skipper MS Dhoni is not happy with the death-overs performance of his bowlers in the series.
Apart from Mohammad Shami, no other Indian bowler looked comfortable bowling in the last few overs. They all bowled wrong lengths throughout the series and were taken apart by the Aussies.
Talking to the reporters after his team’s victory in the 7th ODI at Bengaluru, Dhoni said, “Death bowling is something which is a concern for us. We will have to make improvements in that department.”
Michael Clarke has handed Australia a huge boost ahead of the upcoming Ashes series after returning to action following his latest back problem.
Australia had missed him in the previous series, but will be happy to see his name back on the team-sheet for the latest series.
The Aussie skipper was ruled out of the one-day international series with India because of injury and there were serious doubts as to whether he would be fit for the first Ashes Test with England on November 21 in Brisbane.
David Warner has once again insisted he is determined to clean up his act after yet another incident left him foul of the Australian Cricket authorities. The 26-year-old was hit with a one-match suspended ban by Cricket NSW earlier this week after he went to the races rather than playing for his club side.
The English fast bowler, Boyd Rankin, has said that he is hoping to find a place in the England Ashes squad which will visit Australia towards the end of this year.
Rankin is currently a part of the England ODI team which is playing a 5-match ODI series against the Kangaroos.
In the 2nd game of the series played yesterday, Rankin was the only English bowler who managed to impress. The 29 years old Ireland born fast bowler bowled his heart out and ended up with figures of 49 for 2 in 10 overs.