Pietersen and Flintoff wasted down the order
George Binoy
25-Feb-2013
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I would bat Pietersen at three and Collingwood at four. Who opens is a problem that, thankfully, I don’t have to solve, but perhaps England should look at pushing Flintoff up front, writes Geoffrey Boycott in the Telegraph.
I have been saying for a long time that England have not got their top three right. Matt Prior is a very average batsman to be going in first for England. Ian Bell is a touch player who needs to have runs behind him and for his confidence to be high if he is going to be successful up front at international level ...
... As for Owais Shah, well anyone who believes that he is a No 3 for England wants his head testing. He is a good player in the lower middle order against the old ball. But if you have a borderline batsman who struggles to get in the team, why bat him at three in front of arguably one of the best two or three batsmen in the world in Pietersen and one of the best one-day batsmen in Paul Collingwood? It doesn’t make sense.
First came the Stanford jolly that all went terribly wrong. Next an embarrassing defeat in a warm-up against a Mumbai 2nd XI. To complete the hat-trick, England were trounced by India in their opening one-day international by 158 runs, conceded their highest total in an ODI, and succumbed to surely the most astounding innings ever produced by a man with a bad back, writes David Hopps in the Guardian.
In his tour diary for the Guardian, Hopps writes, "India, of course, is not ''a third-world country''. India, as we have all been taught, is a ''land of contradictions.'' It is a land that can pay Hayden US$375,000 to play for Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League then irritate him when it takes half-an-hour to move a sightscreen."
Several records were broken this morning in Rajkot but those that fell only increased England’s embarrassment as their tour of India began in disastrous style, writes Angus Fraser in the Independent.
Stellar names may be missing from the India side, but there can be no doubting the talent and professionalism of a team in transition. They were also better than England in areas such as running between the wickets and fielding, which have been key weaknesses in the past, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.
Here's Hobson's comment piece in the Times.
Anybody questioning how a side who thrashed South Africa 4-0 at the end of last season can have played so limply yesterday is bound to look at what happened in between. The conclusion must be that England lost more than the chance to win $1million a head on the Stanford mission. They forgot that playing cricket is a pleasure rather than a moral burden or a chore; that they are part of the entertainment industry and paid to put on a show.
George Binoy is an assistant editor at ESPNcricinfo