Cricket World Cup: England's hard earned win

England's ODI team's problems are manifest - too slow at the top of the order, an all-rounder who is all bowler, Tresco and Jones frightening club cricketers instead of playing with the Big Boys - but it's time to praise them for developing a relatively rare talent in English cricket, indeed English sport.

Through the back-end of the interminable CB series in Australia and again yesterday vs Bangladesh, England found ways to win. Let's look at how they did it.

Winning the toss, Vaughan summed up the pitch correctly and (bravely) opted to field. The obligation was placed on the bowlers to get wickets and prey on the inexperience of the dashing Deshers. At 65-6, England's bowlers had done all Vaughan could have asked.

The Bangla Boys fought back (in these days of 8, sometimes 9, proper batsmen in ODI sides 65-6 isn't a decisive match position), but Monty chipped in with 3 wickets and England were looking at a very gettable target of 144 to win.

After losing an early wicket then losing out of form players for out of form scores (Vaughan 30, Strauss 23, Flintoff 23), England had to find a way to win. Colly and Nixon, men from the far North East and far Noth West of England respectively, places where for generations a living was wrenched from the earth, assessed their resources and must have thought about the three Number 11s to come. Colly's performance in grinding out the role of sheet anchor reminded this writer of Michael Bevan - Colly is not in his class, at least not yet, but the uncanny similarity in strike rates (Colly 74.15, Bevan 74.16) is not the only thing they have in common.

If anything, Nixon was more impressive - and wasn't it good to see him striding to the crease at 6 down and not Read or Jones? He played himself in, kept an eye on the overs, then started to improvise and knock the bowlers off their lines and lengths with that hideous backhanded sweep, and even had the good sense to belt an boundary to finish the match and give the crowd something to cheer about. His celebration was as unrestrained as you would expect, but showed that the match was a hard one against worthy opponents. Any mealy-mouthed whinging from journalists expecting England to smear the 144 runs needed in 20 overs says more about their jadedness and lack of respect for the Bangla Boys than it does about England's excellent win. 

[The Tooting Trumpet]