Regimented England unsuited to one-day cricket
We begin this week with a spot of nostalgia
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
We begin this week with a spot of nostalgia. Ladies and gentlemen, the Spin gives you Gooch, Botham, Stewart, Hick, Fairbrother, Lamb, Lewis, Reeve, Pringle, DeFreitas and Illingworth. As only the youngest among you will need telling, this was the side that should have beaten Pakistan in the final of the 1992 World Cup. It is also the last time England had a one-day team consistently worthy of the name, writes Lawrence Booth in the Guardian.
Money is being pumped into English cricket like never before. The back-room staff could form an XI of their own and still have men left over to make and serve the drinks. Central contracts briefly coincided with an upturn in the fortunes of the Test team, although hindsight makes you wonder whether that had more to do with Duncan Fletcher and the partnerships he formed with Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan. Yet the one-day team continues to blunder its way round the world like a bunch of accidental tourists, losing six games out of 10 against meaningful opposition and forever tripping at the first hurdle of a World Cup.
It is becoming increasingly obvious that one-day cricket is not our game. The delicate and/or flamboyant skills required to win one-day matches seem beyond traditional English play, writes Simon Hughes in the Telegraph.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo