"How shit you must be if I got you out twice!"
-Paul Harris to Andrew Symonds, Perth 2008

Monday, November 16, 2009

Mascaraman should be captain FOREVER

"I'm not sure if anyone has chased 240, we had the belief but we didn't have the skills today".

What a fine example of honesty. He is quite the role model that Alastair Cook. Announcing to the whole world as captain that his team lost because of lack of skills. Notice, the skills seemed to have magically disappeared specifically in the second game against South Africa. As opposed to all the other times when England have boggled us with their ability to play thumping T20 cricket.

England's line up had KP, Trott, Morgan and just for the heck of it, I'll throw Cook in there. Colly, their best T20 batsman (after Morgan these days) was missing, but why do I get the feeling that KP is more than qualified to replace Colly? Oh wait, that's because he is!
Their bowling line up, with the exception of Swann, who I doubt would have been of much use at Centurion, was the same. Yet, when England won the first T20 because of the Saffers' stupidity and Sirs Duckworth and Lewis, follicle-less Nasser said that the Poms deserved to win because of the brand of cricket they had played. So please explain to me how the team that deserves to have their ass saved by rain one day, loses their skills the next. At what point in the game, did the Poms look even remotely interested to chase down the 240? But they must have wanted to because they had the BELIEF!

Cooky, the Saffers are really fantastic hosts. If you ask them nicely, they will scour the borders of Africa to find your team's 'lost' skills for you. But methinks the real skill that is lacking is caring about anything that is not the Ashes. So the hosts will keep on looking, but where will they find something that does not exist to begin with?

Unless you have BELIEF that it can be found. Then it should turn up.

6 comments:

Reverse Swing said...

they lost it even before they started chasing it, there was no will or urgency in chasing such a big total, they at least should have a go at it rather then saving faces.

It not skills in mentality as MS Dhoni said some nights ago.

Vim said...

Belief; my arse.

If they had believed they could chase it down, they wouldn't have sent out those two openers.

They treated it like an extended net. Lazy sods. If the boot had been on the other foot, the Saffers would have given it a proper shake.

Cooks just bats his eyelids and thinks he can say whatever he wants.

Purna said...

Reverse, it's such a defeatist attitude. Not fun to watch.

Vim, he defends his decision to open with Denly because they made 200 with the same line up in the first match. They made 202 and the Saffers were terrible. They actually thought other teams don't learn from their mistakes as well.

Vim said...

In the first game, Colly and Morgan made all the runs.

Denly made 0 off 1, Cook made 11 off 8, so that justification looks about as brainless as Cook did when everyone else was trying to captain his team for him. But shit that was funny.

Purna said...

I know. I am beyond thrilled that he is the next leader of England. Please God let it be him!

Anonymous said...

Maybe it's because I'm Australian, Purna, but I think England's defeatist attitude is fantastic to watch.

It's when they start getting cocky a'la Prat-face Swann that it becomes less fun.