Friday, May 14, 2010

Famous 5 on the cards for England?

Well last night, England moved on to the finals of the world T20 tournament by beating Sri Lanka by 7 wickets. But, the real nightmare for England have so far been the finals of a world tournament wherein it has made it to the finals of a mega tournament on four earlier occasions but to no avail. They were forced to be satisfied with the runners-up tag. The list includes West Indies, Australia, Pakistan in world cups and once again the West Indies in the ICC Champions trophy 2004. It was in 2004 that they made it clear to the world that they can never win a mega tournament no matter what.

Since 1992, after so many cricketing greats like Mike Gating, Ian Botham and others retired, the English team have not at all recovered. The best example for this would be the way England played the 1996 world cup with wins only against Holland and UAE before they finally lost to Sri Lanka in the quarter finals of the same. England then had losses against Pakistan, South Africa and New Zealand not to mention. So was the case in 1999 world cup when they had only one sarisfactory win against defending champions Sri Lanka that eventually proved out to be wrong.

managed was a win against West Indies in the super eights of the same. Putting it simple, in every world cup after 1992, England have been able to manage just one win against a major cricketing oppposition. And in the 2003 world cup, if not for their win against Pakistan, they had nothing to take home which happened to be worse when they didn't even make it to the super sixes, something which Kenya and Zimbabwe had no problems in doing. And in the 2007 world cup, all EnglandAnd coming to the other mega event namely the ICC champions trophy, the only time when England have crossed the round robin stage was in 2004 where they ended as runners up.

One can still remember the ICC Champions trophy 2004 where England entered the finals by surprisingly beating Australia in the semis. England were the favorites to win the tournament for two reasons namely one for beating the all conquering Australian side in the semis and two for facing the West Indies team which can gift the match to any opposition including Bangladesh. No matter that West Indies did enter the finals by beating South Africa who were still a decent opposition. But, people's favorites were England and only England. Following suit, England reduced the West Indies to 149/8 only to see the West Indies no lose any more wickets but also end their match by hitting a four.

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