Sunday 27 October 2013

Tri-Series Final v West Indies

Random thoughts on England's Tri-Series Final defeat to West Indies:
  • As a fan, I'm disappointed for England; but as a rational human being, you have to say that the best team won. I said from the outset that West Indies were favorites, with England missing key players in both the batting and bowling departments, and so it proved. 
  • At the risk of sounding like a broken record... England needed more batting out there. Dropping Winfield was criminal - you don't need six bowlers in T20, you need runs on the board! The scoreboard suggests England were 20-short, but in reality it was probably even more, with the West Indies batsmen playing well within themselves at the end.
  • Dottin and Stephanie Taylor are on top of the world right now, and the ICC stats that say Sarah Taylor is the world's number one T20 batsman are looking a bit tardy already! (Though to be fair, the numbers at 'time of writing' don't (I assume) include this series!)
  • I've seen it said a few times recently that England don't have a Dottin - a player who can hit the boundary at-will - but Nat Sciver crashed a HUGE six on the last ball of the innings, when she had nothing to lose. Why didn't she do that earlier? She was taking care of her wicket, I guess; which may have been the right decision under the circumstances, but I can tell you one thing for certain: it's not how Dottin would have played that innings - she'd have gotten rich, or died tryin!
  • It's been great to have this series broadcast on-line. (Though next time, please let me have a better quality stream - I'll happily pay for it!) But the commentary was a joke - you need commentators that actually know WOMEN'S cricket. To be fair, the BBC were also guilty of this last summer - with a certain New Zealander admitting on-air that he'd just mugged-up a bit the night before - but at least he tried to be positive and didn't spend half the time telling Isa Guha she looked hot in heels. (The batsman/batswoman/batsperson thing is actually quite a good test of whether someone knows women's cricket - if they need to ask... they don't!)

No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.