England lacking motivation
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
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Humiliation is calling too often. Three times in the past fortnight England's one-day cricketers have felt its shame and embarrassment, writes Steve James in the Telegraph.
We sensed this was a distracted side, and now stronger and stronger evidence is unfolding before our very eyes. This is a sensitive issue among the team and its management. They resent such insinuations. Indeed, coach Peter Moores was defiantly denying them again yesterday. But he should know there is only one sure way of knocking them stone-dead: by his team performing in the middle. Tomorrow in Indore would be a good place to start. Six matches remain in the series and much can still be achieved.
England players' minds may be elsewhere amid exotic charms of India but pace attack lacking spice must stand tall with new ball, writes Angus Fraser in the Independent on Sunday.
One-day cricket is all about momentum. England had it at the end of the summer when they were thrashing South Africa, then ranked second best in the world, 4-0. Time away can cause the commodity to be diluted, and England's players had a six-week break between the final game against South Africa and travelling to Antigua.
But it is more likely that focus was lost in the preparation for the match against Stanford's Super Stars. Few sportsmen have the chance to earn $1m for a night's work, but the constant questioning the England players faced about money and the integrity of the game they were about to play must have led them to wonder if they really wanted to win it. To go into a match where so much is at stake with such an attitude would be a unique experience, and England could still be trying to come to terms with these emotions.
Kevin Pietersen’s honeymoon as England captain is over - Stanford, Mumbai seconds and Rajkot have seen to that - and it is a moot point as to whether his personal crisis is bigger or smaller than Ricky Ponting’s, writes Simon Wilde in the Sunday Times. Ponting lost the plot tactically in defeat in Nagpur and got himself run out in the process. The same can be said for Pietersen in Rajkot, where he inserted India, only to see them post the highest ODI total against England. Pietersen once admitted that he was hopeless at reading pitches; he is going to have to learn fast.
More than sheer poetry or sublime timing, there was another quality, a very important one, that stood out in Yuvraj Singh's monumental blast on Friday afternoon: anger, writes Bobilli Vijay Kumar in the Times of India.
There is a lesson, a story, behind this anger. Cricketers in India are often placed on such a lofty pedestal that it won't be inappropriate to say they are 'high'. Sadly, some of them get so carried away by their own popularity that they don't know what to do when the inevitable 'tripping' begins. Lulled by a few successes, intoxicated by the adulation and accompanying riches, some of them slip into a state of complacency. Sooner or earlier, they start believing they are infallible, even untouchable; some think they just need to turn up on the ground for the magic to flow.
It doesn't take long for the bubble to burst though. But then, thankfully, there is a perfect remedy for this disease: the boot. More often than not, it works; once these thick-headed stars are thrown back into the system and confront anonymity, they realise their follies and try and catch up on lost time. Yuvraj, despite his love for the high life, may not fall into this category of players. But the exit from the Test squad, even if it was for just one series, has obviously helped.
When Yuvraj bats the way he did at Rajkot on Friday, a comparison with Richards may not be out of place. He has the same disdainful swagger, the same audacious stroke-play, writes Pradeep Magazine in the Hindustan Times.
The major difference is that while Richards can and did a Rajkot very often, in the best and worst of conditions and in both forms of the game, Yuvraj has lacked consistency and his Test failures are too galling for anyone to accord him the status reserved for the best. If one were to write his epitaph today, he would be summed up as a batsman who could destroy any attack, but in conditions favourable for batting. What must trouble Yuvraj is that long before Dhoni arrived, he was the chosen king. He is 26 now and even the vice-captaincy has been taken away from him.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo