Friday, May 6, 2011

How does it matter who leads England

Well the breaking news is that England have named two different captains for two limited overs format of the game with Stuart Broad having to lead the side for T20 games while Alistair Cook will henceforth take care of England's one day games. Though this news hardly sparks of any sort of debate, people keeping their fingers crossed are just countable. At least as a cricket blogger, I have no other option but to shed some words regarding the selection or appointment. The tag "No Police State Girls blog" just doesn't seem to go too well with me whatsoever at this moment.

The result of the latest development in England cricket was due to the fact that their then captain Andrew Strauss wants to focus completely on his test career while Paul Collingwood has nothing to say about his T20 career. And, Paul Collingwood has every reason to justify himself when he bought home the country's first glory since decades of cricket that included failures, just misses and chokes. Collingwood's feat was achieved after England had three workld cup finals without a win along with an ICC champion's trophy that too ending up as runners-up. If South Africans would be reading this, they'd just breathe free.

The chokers tag is not totally restricted to South Africa alone and England also have an equal share in it. Coming to the point, one has to rather concentrate on the entire team of England which are in doldrums at present with their latest such thing evident in the world cup. England failed to win matches against Bangladesh and Ireland despite posting a stiff target of 327 on the board against the latter and having the opposition reeling at 111/5 at one stage. Of course, England were able to rarely regain and defend the Ashes on the previous two occasions but that is regarding their test cricket.

Right now, it has to be the entire England team and not just the captain alone whom the ECB needs to focus on. If not for their T20 win last year, England have gone back to their old ways of leaving things half way when they had just one T20 tournament against Pakistan and test series' against the same though which England won convincingly, their body language didn't speak for them. They beat both Pakistan and Australia with destiny favoring them by not having matches against other teams like Sri Lanka and India against whom their real myth is evaluated.

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