Thank God for the football

	© The Daily Mail

England’s cricketers will be happy that the World Cup is on. Last September, football took a back seat as the Ashes reached its conclusion and a few said this heralded a change in the public’s sporting priorities. Nine months later, and football again dominates, but after another wretched performance at The Oval, perhaps that’s just as well.

You have to burrow into the twilight zone of the sports’ pages to find even a passing reference to the 2nd ODI, and almost universally Michael Owen’s knee occupies more column inches than the entire match.

“If there was one place to bury all the Ashes nostalgia for once and for all, then this was surely it,” wrote Colin Bateman in The Daily Express “ and Sri Lanka dug the deepest of holes for England and dumped them in it. You can only live on past glories for so long …”

Even the broadsheets, who normally give England’s international matches their full attention, seem to have had one eye on Cologne. Only Mike Selvey in The Guardian attempted analysis, and he spelt out some home truths about Sajid Mahmood. “There came a point yesterday when even the most hard-hearted spectators must have felt like running on to give him a hug. His was a dismal experience, his bowling stripped bare by a withering, calculated assault from Jayasuriya and Jayawardene at the outset, from which he was never able to recover.”

In The Daily Telegraph, a subdued Derek Pringle noted that "the worst 10-over figures by an England bowler are 10-0-83-0, still held by your correspondent after a mauling from the West Indies in the 1987 World Cup, but they would surely have been exceeded yesterday had Mahmood bowled his allotted 10."

Back to The Guardian where the excellent Lawrence Booth described Kevin Pietersen, who hit 73, as “playing like a millionaire surrounded by paupers”. He added: “Right now, Pietersen's brilliance also highlights England's ineptitude. The trouble is that not even Pietersen, a man so keen to prove his allegiance to his adopted country that he painted the cross of St George on his cheeks before last week's Twenty20 international, can carry the burden for much longer. In fact, he might already be feeling the pressure.”

In The Sun, John Ethridge could take no more. "Familiarity breeds contempt, they say, and there is only so much of this repetitive rubbish we can take. This defeat does nothing to dispel the notion that England have no true strategy with the World Cup only nine months away."

Read in App

Elevate your reading experience on ESPNcricinfo App.

Download App Now