English cricket has had its ups and downs over the years, especially in the limited overs format of the game. Although the short, fast-paced twenty-over-a-side game was developed in England, some years ago now, English players were quickly over-taken by other countries. Today, the twenty-over game is played for large sums of money in the IPL league in India. The English county version has a long way to go to compete.
But on 16 May 2010, the England cricket team sealed an historic victory over a strong Australia team to be crowned the top international Twenty20 team in the world.
Hard-hitting During Powerplay
England has, for some years, taken an almost sedate approach to the "powerplay" overs in limited-overs cricket, where there are restrictions on field places that favour expansive stroke-play. A succession of England top orders have tended to keep wickets in hand and aim for a late surge. It has sometimes been a successful approach, but too often that late surge has never arrived, and the team has been left regretting missed opportunities at the start.
WIth Michael Lumb and Craig Kieswetter, England have found an opening partnership able to attack the opening bowlers and, in a run chase, get the team well ahead of the run rate, taking pressure off the batsmen that follow. England have also been fortunate that Kevin Pietersen has found form again in this tournament, after a poor winter. His contributions were decisive in several matches, earning him "Player of the Series".
Eoin Morgan, lower down the order, is a fine "finisher" and hits the ball to all parts. He has been assisted by a better recent run from Luke Wright, who has had a lot of chances and now seems to be coming good with the bat.
Slower-ball Bouncers
Although England's bowlers and fielders have done well to restrict other teams and there have been some notable performances, the bowling line-up does not feel quite as settled as the batting one. Yorkshire's Tim Bresnan was the star in several matches and made some good contributions with the bat as well. However, he did bowl some bad overs, and Broad, Swann, Sidebottom and Yardy all took more wickets. Sidebottom pulled off the best individual bowling performance for England in the tournament, with 3/23.
What the bowlers did well was mix things up, with lots of subtle variations of pace, including a bizarre ball, that looks like an old-fashioned "long-hop": a slower ball bounced in halfway down the pitch. One would expect a school boy to launch such a delivery over the boundary, but several of the opposition batsmen struggled to time it.
England do still appear short of either an express fast bowler, or a mystery spinner, which would add an extra element of danger for the opposing teams. England may still want to try to bring Adil Rashid back into the side before the summer is out, although Twenty20 may not prove the Yorkshire attacking leg-spinner's best format.
England's Cricketing Summer
England have a busy summer of cricket ahead of them, with tests and one day matches against Bangladesh, a one-day series against Australia and a test and one-day series against Pakistan. The team will certainly be full of confidence after their performance here. Some of the Twenty20 "specialist" players may well have put forward a good case to be included in the 50 over game, if not the test matches. Of course, players like James Anderson, Andrew Strauss and Alistair Cook will be returning into the side and the selectors may well have something of a headache deciding who should miss out.
Duncan Hall - Duncan Hall is a semi-professional acoustic musician and lecturer in Government & Politics
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