England v
Sri Lanka
1st
and 2nd ODI
From the
Ridiculous to the Sublime
June 25th 2016
In my last entry I suggested that Liam Plunkett should
be on the radar for the Pakistan Test series, as should Adil Rashid. The pair
of them have given England a taste of what they are missing.
Adil Rashid has contributed 10-0-36-0 in the first
ODI – 20 runs fewer than any other England bowler – and 10-0-34-2 in the second,
bowling with skill and threat (Moeen Ali contributed 19-0-110-1 between the two
matches). Adil Rashid will always have the odd bad match, but he will have many
more good ones. While his selection for India is taken for granted, fewer
people seem to think that he would add something to the attack that the decline
of Moeen’s threat has taken away. Maybe it is time to think seriously about giving him a game.
Liam Plunkett took some punishment with the ball in
the 1st ODI, but came in with the match slipping away from England.
At 235-8, with 52 wanted from 26 balls, the situation was critical. Plunkett
helped Chris Woakes to get England close but, with 10 wanted from the last 2
balls and 7 from the last, Sri Lanka should have wrapped-up the win. Plunkett
reminded people that he has First Class centuries (plural) and Test and ODI 50s
by hammering a ball only slightly off Yorker length into the stands for a tie.
22 from 11 balls in a crisis, with the Sri Lankans bowling tightly and well was
a demonstration of his talent. In the 2nd ODI he bowled with fire
and venom to fire out two quick wickets when Sri Lanka had made a fast start,
giving England a control that they never relinquished.
In the two matches England have swung from
diabolically bad to supreme brilliance. Having kept Sri Lanka to a probably
sub-par 286, there was no excuse for crashing to 82-6. It was awful. The top
order batting suffers these collapses too often for it to be put down to
occasional accidents. However, there is also a steel in the side that allows
bad positions to be rescued. Jos Buttler is back and, together with Chris
Woakes, who seems to grow in stature with every game, Between then they brought
England back into the match and looked to be winning it before the departure of
Buttler and Willey in quick succession should have killed off the recovery.
Just as well that Chris Woakes is showing a confidence that he has never shown
before and, in Liam Plunkett, found a solid ally in a crisis.
The second match was completely the opposite.
Having made a quick start, Sri Lanka never really got out of first gear. There
were two fifties, there was a forty, there were a series of partnerships but,
whenever Sri Lanka were in a position to start to accelerate, they lost a
wicket and often two. The match then turned into a race between Hales and Roy
to the century. Lest we forget that Hales can give the ball some tap, from 93*
he went to 120* in eight balls:
6 . 1 4 4 6
6 6
Hales’s sequence in ODIs and Tests since the end of
the South African Test series is a stunning:
57, 99, 65,
50, 112, 86, 83, 11, 18, 94, 4 & 133*
There are
still England fans who think that Hales is not good enough and should not start
against Pakistan. One wonders what run of scores would satisfy them.
A ten wicket
win was, to put it mildly, a restorant. The flip side of the week was the news
that Nick Compton is adding his name to the list of cricketers taking an
indefinite break from cricket. A fine cricketer, hampered by the family name
and the situation that a section of the public will never forgive him for the
fact that his grandfather emigrated to South Africa after retiring from the
game. He has two Test centuries and can feel that he won the 1st
Test in South Africa with his batting, but the pressure on him to be more
adventurous led to a collapse in form and confidence. Nick Compton should have
three more seasons of prolific county run-getting in him but the odds seem to
be that he will abandon the game, possibly for the media. Social media are
putting new pressures on players that they never had to face in the past and
Nick Compton is just the latest player to find that the pressures on him have
got too much.
It seems to
be taken as given that Scott Borthwick will line up against Pakistan, although
two failures in the Championship this week has taken some wind out of his
sails. Fortunately he will have another opportunity before he takes on the Pakistan
attack.
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