Andy Pakes looks at the emergence of Australia's James Pattinson and compares him to his England-capped brother Darren.
Sam Holloway looks at why test match cricket is not going to become extinct just yet
Manraj Bahra looks at the subtle differences between the forms of cricket and how teams shouldn't look to pick the same players in all forms.
Sports Editor James Tompkinson looks at the continuing problem of corruption within cricket as the cases of three Pakistani cricketers accused of spot fixing comes to an end
After the heroics of the Ashes series, the first three ODIs have almost felt like an anti-climax to a highly successful winter for England in the Test arena, but they should be valued as being an important part of England’s preparation for the upcoming World Cup in the subcontinent. If anything, the first three ODIs have highlighted the difference between limited overs cricket and the five day version of the game, but England will want to bounce back to ensure that their winter doesn’t end with ODI disappointment.
The first match in the series undoubtedly belonged to Shane Watson. England batted first and posted an extremely competitive score of 294, with Andrew Strauss (63) and Kevin Pietersen (78) both getting good, but not exceptional, scores. In response, Watson produced a magical innings of 161 not out from just 150 balls that effectively sunk England, who couldn’t take other Australian wickets quickly enough to stop Watson steering his team home to a six wicket victory.
The second ODI followed five days later in Hobart and this time it was Shaun Marsh who took all the plaudits as he hit 110 to help the Aussies to a competitive, but fairly modest total of 230. England should have had the resources to chase 230 down but good Australian bowling and some poor shots from the England batsmen meant that they were bowled out for a very poor total of 184.
In the third ODI, England batted first and, despite the best efforts of Jonathan Trott (84), they only managed to score 214, which was efficiently chased down by the Aussies with the help of David Hussey (68) and Brad Haddin (59). A mention also must go to Aussie all rounder John Hastings, because despite only scoring 18 runs in this match, he played with remarkable common sense and determination to keep his wicket and allow Hussey to steer the Aussies home to a third consecutive victory.
Looking at the first three games objectively, while the Aussies have been dominant, England have made key mistakes at key times that have allowed their opponents to get on top. After the third ODI, Andrew Strauss said that too many England batsmen have got out in this series playing soft shots, and he was right. It is so important that batsmen convert starts into big scores, and we have seen with Australia that two big scores (Watson’s 161 and Marsh’s 110) have played a huge part in their victories in the series so far. It seems ironic that Alistair Cook, who has just hit 766 Ashes runs, is sat at home watching the matches on TV. Surely if he was England’s best batsman in the Ashes series, he should be able to adapt his game to play in ODIs?
It must also be said that while batsmen can set you up for victory, it is bowlers that win or lose games of cricket. Australia’s bowlers have been disciplined and stuck rigidly to their plans, whereas England’s bowlers have been wayward at times and have lacked the cutting edge needed to take wickets at crucial times. Having Jimmy Anderson back for the last four matches will hopefully give England a much needed boost, but losing Graeme Swann and Tim Bresnan to injury are huge blows. It will be interesting to see if the likes of Shazhad, Tremlett and Woakes can take the opportunity handed to them in this series and stake a serious claim for a seat on the plane to the World Cup. England will long to get that winning mentality back, but they are going to have to play substantially better than they have done to salvage this series.
comment deleted by the author Nice article, and glad to see we won the last ODI. Our poor form in the ODIs is a shame, but surely not too much to worry about. I think that if sacrificing this series by resting some players means we may perform better in the World Cup then it's thoroughly worth it. Also I doubt Cook would be all that much of an asset to us right now, he racks up massive scores by gradually and patiently building up a score over entire days, time you don't have in limited overs.
At least with this last win we've managed to avoid a repeat of 2009's 7-0 whitewash.
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