200+ partnerships & Sri Lanka

After the West Indies, the next best thing that could happen in the ongoing world cup would be the elimination of England who can only play a spoilsport with lack of talent and hard work. And this was very much evident when England became the 2^nd team after the mighty losers-West Indies to be the team to hand over a 10 wicket win to a sub-continent nation. But, if England has lost to Sri Lanka by 10 wickets with over 200 on board, questions will definitely be raised regarding their caliber in international cricket. England is not that bad a team to lose so badly in the crucial stages of a tournament.

I think I have just got to Enjoy what's fun and funny with the English language keeping in mind the way the English campaign is going on. An effortless win for Sri Lanka yesterday seemed as though the Sri Lankans were playing some Netherlands and not England and the game was not a quarter-final but just another game in the league stage or some stupid friendly match. Though England have not been favorites to win the cup or make it to the semi-finals, such a bad thrashing was not at all expected by anyone. Sri Lanka never needed Muralitharan to do the damage.

An ordinary Herath and Mendis were enough to restrict the Englishmen from posting a demanding total. In fact, Muralitharan didn't even bowl his full quota of 10 overs and instead settled with 9 overs despite being the most successful bowler with two wickets to his credit. Let alone taking a wicket, there was not even dropped catches to say that England missed a chance. In the 1^st match between Pakistan and West Indies, West Indies posted just 112 on the board and a 10 wicket win for Pakistan was almost expected. But things would not have been the case had they got a decent 200+ on board.

After the 4^th quarter-finals between the teams mentioned above, one has to notice the Sri Lankans having two 200+ partnerships, with the 1^st one coming against Zimbabwe and the second yesterday. They just fell short of breaking their record for the highest 1^st wicket partnership when they lost their first wicket for 282. Yesterday, had this been known beforehand, may be the Sri Lankans would have conceded another 40 runs which would have seen them into the record books. As a matter of fact, Sri Lanka hold the record for the highest 1^st wicket record against England in ODIs when they made 286.

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.