Thorpe - 'fluency was hard to come by'
On a tough battle with the Bangladeshi bowlers It was hard work out there
Wisden CricInfo staff
23-Oct-2003
On a tough battle with the Bangladeshi bowlers
It was hard work out there. I don't think I was anywhere near being fluent, but as I said before the Test match, we had to adjust. You never expect an easy ride when you visit someone else's country to play a cricket match, and today didn't go exactly as we planned.
It was hard work out there. I don't think I was anywhere near being fluent, but as I said before the Test match, we had to adjust. You never expect an easy ride when you visit someone else's country to play a cricket match, and today didn't go exactly as we planned.
Bangladesh bowled well, they were very disciplined, and we lost some early wickets in the first session, which set us back a little bit. But we stuck to our task and nearly a hundred-run lead is a pretty good effort.
On missing out on a century
I'm disappointed not to have scored a hundred - it would have been good for the team. But it wasn't to be. To be honest, I was taken by surprise. I thought I'd got through another session, and I had allowed my concentration to slip a bit. But it was still good bowling, and that happens at this level.
I'm disappointed not to have scored a hundred - it would have been good for the team. But it wasn't to be. To be honest, I was taken by surprise. I thought I'd got through another session, and I had allowed my concentration to slip a bit. But it was still good bowling, and that happens at this level.
On the vagaries of the pitch
The pitch is a tough one to be fluent on. Marcus played exceptionally well. He's in fine form and is a powerful player. As for the rest of us, we maybe haven't had as much time in the middle as we'd have liked, and we had to scrap pretty hard. Getting through the first half-an-hour was tricky, because the pitch played quite slow and low and the bounce was a touch unpredictable. That made scoring and fluency hard to come by. We'd love to be in a better position, but we are still well placed.
The pitch is a tough one to be fluent on. Marcus played exceptionally well. He's in fine form and is a powerful player. As for the rest of us, we maybe haven't had as much time in the middle as we'd have liked, and we had to scrap pretty hard. Getting through the first half-an-hour was tricky, because the pitch played quite slow and low and the bounce was a touch unpredictable. That made scoring and fluency hard to come by. We'd love to be in a better position, but we are still well placed.
On the inexperience of England's middle-order
I didn't have to nursemaid the younger batsmen at all. Getting past that first half-hour was the key - either you did or you didn't, and there were only maybe four of us who got in and made some sort of an impact. We'd have loved to have got to 400, even 300, but were are still happy. Hopefully we can come out tomorrow and put Bangladesh under pressure again.
I didn't have to nursemaid the younger batsmen at all. Getting past that first half-hour was the key - either you did or you didn't, and there were only maybe four of us who got in and made some sort of an impact. We'd have loved to have got to 400, even 300, but were are still happy. Hopefully we can come out tomorrow and put Bangladesh under pressure again.
On the floodlight failure that ended play early
We thought the lights would come back on pretty quickly, so we hung around and had a little chat about how the day had gone. And it had been a hard day, as some of us know all too well from our previous experiences in the subcontinent. And tomorrow will be another one for us. We'd have loved to have picked up two or three wickets tonight, but it wasn't to be. We certainly don't imagine anything untoward was going on behind the scenes ...
We thought the lights would come back on pretty quickly, so we hung around and had a little chat about how the day had gone. And it had been a hard day, as some of us know all too well from our previous experiences in the subcontinent. And tomorrow will be another one for us. We'd have loved to have picked up two or three wickets tonight, but it wasn't to be. We certainly don't imagine anything untoward was going on behind the scenes ...