World Cup can't end quickly enough for a sorry England
India v England, 29th October 2023.
INDIA 229–9
ENGLAND 129 all out
India win by 100 runs
Post-match, England skipper Jos Buttler was rightly proud of his bowlers, David Willey, Adil Rashid and Chris Woakes the pick of the bunch with 7 wickets between them, and that they “fancied themselves” after restricting India to a lowly 229–9 from their 50 overs amid a cacophonous din of air horns inside the Lucknow stadium. At 30–0 and needing exactly 200 further runs for an improbable and unlikely victory against the hosts and overwhelming favourites for the World Cup, one would imagine the England captain cast more than a hopeful glance towards a victory that would keep his team’s remotely slim chances of a Semi-Final spot alive.
25 excruciating overs later, England were 98–8 and their collapse of 8 wickets for the addition of just 68 total tuns was as the skipper said “the same old story” and England are bottom of the table, out of the tournament they were the defending Champions of, and face the prospect of “dead rubber” games against old foes Australia and Pakistan, and one begins to worry they’ll be pushed all the way by tournament minnows the Netherlands too.
All in all, this World Cup can’t end quickly enough for this sorry, abject England team.
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Inserted into bat, India were reliant upon a 91 run partnership between skipper Rohit Sharma and wicket-keeper KL Rahul and with their demise came the surreal sound of silence as the air horns were temporarily quietened. A run-a-ball 49 from Suryakumar Yadav ensured both the air horns returned as well as his team eventually reaching a below par total of just 229, easily 75 runs short of a truly competitive total and England firmly in the game. Rohit Sharma’s classy 87 runs from 101 balls received was easily the game’s one true highlight and what a joy it is to see the 36 year old from Nagpur wield his cricketing willow. 10 boundary 4’s and 3 boundary clearing 6’s, it was an innings deserving of a century and I for one cannot wait to see him don the whites of Test Match cricket for England’s early 2024 tour of his home country. Rohit Sharma’s batting elegance is a thing of cricketing beauty and albeit painfully, so was the way his pace and spin bowlers dismantled a sorry looking England.
Mohammed Shami (4–22) and Jasprit Bumrah (3–32) “top and tailed” the England batting order with ferocious spells of fast bowling that saw Shami making a mess of Jonny Bairstow and Ben Stokes cricketing “castle” behind them as Bumrah did likewise to Malan’s stumps before trapping Joe Root “plumb” LBW for a golden duck, and an immediate and disconsolate trudge back to the Pavilion from whence he came. From 30–0 England had lost their top 4 premier batsmen for the addition of just 9 runs and whilst “the man with the golden arm” according to local Indian TV commentators Mohammed Shami snagged the wicket of Moeen Ali for 15, his spinning bowling mates of Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja brilliantly ripped out the remaining heart of the England batting order. Yadav’s delivery that bowled Jos Buttler was a true gem, the England captain playing an ungainly nothing of a shot before his stumps were splayed everywhere and his delivery to remove Liam Livingstone (England’s top scorer with 27) was a thing of cricketing beauty too. Shami came back to make a mess of Adil Rashid’s stumps, Bumrah did likewise with his first ball to Mark Wood, and England are out of the World Cup with 3 games still to play.
Cue the air horns!
Since we were last together, my lifelong football team of choice Liverpool are back to winning ways and back on an undefeated run, South Africa are rugby World Champions after remarkably winning their Quarter-Final, Semi-Final and Final by one, single solitary point in each game, and a pulsating and quite brilliant Final on Saturday in Paris against New Zealand, and baseball’s “Big Dance” of the World Series is underway with the score standing at 1–1 after 2 matches in this best of 7 season ending spectacular. Here we have the “Rangers” of Texas as favourites over the “Diamondbacks” of Arizona with the underdogs unlucky not to have a 2–0 lead in their pocket as they return home for the next 3 games in this October classic now tiptoeing into November. I can’t cheer for the Rangers for political or even sporting reasons, and I have no love for the Diamondbacks as they dumped my beloved LA Dodgers from the play-offs. Oh the fickle fortunes of watching sport! One wonders what Dave “Doc” Roberts, manager of the big spending Dodgers, thinks of it all. Another huge opportunity missed perhaps or does he just lament at the strange and unique nature of watching sport like the rest of us?
Leaving aside pointless rhetorical questions such as these we’ll return briefly to the World Cup, and for a cricket competition crying out for a tense, close game, we had two in consecutive days and I had the very real pleasure of watching them both. South Africa’s 1 wicket win against Pakistan has almost certainly assured them of a Semi-Final place and for the losers Pakistan, they have the prospect of a “dead rubber” game with England that regardless of the outcome will see them outside of the top 4 Semi-Final spots. It wasn’t supposed to be this way for a Pakistan team I tipped as second favourites for the tournament but their defeat to South Africa was perfectly in keeping with their World Cup fortunes. On their way to setting South Africa 271 runs to win, Pakistan batted well, led by their elegant and joy to watch of a captain Babar Azam but he, like Saud Shakeel and Shadam Khan, each posted at least 40 runs but nothing more substantial than 50. Mohammed Rizwan was one of three batsmen to climb into their 20’s or 30’s, get a firm start, then lose their wickets rather than scoring a big, match changing score. Rizwan in particular was dropped first ball before aggressively embroiling himself in a mid-wicket spat with South African fast bowler Marco Jansen. A pleasing verbal joust of cricketing days past! Jansen would have his revenge with 3 wickets for 43 runs conceded before crashing a quick 20 runs with the bat as his team inched ever nearer their target whilst quixotically, Pakistan neared victory themselves too. The fall of Jansen’s wicket was soon followed by that of one of South Africa’s many stand out performers of the tournament so far Aiden Markram for a run-a-ball 91. At 250–7, South Africa needed 21 runs for victory and Pakistan, 3 wickets. Each team edged nervously nearer their target before Tabraiz Shamsi, custodian of 4 Pakistan wickets with his left arm spinning deliveries earlier, struck a boundary 4 for victory and a 1 wicket win.
5 runs was the tiny margin of victory in the following day’s battle between neighbours Australia and New Zealand, quite the feat considering the two teams smashed and crashed a combined 65 boundary 4’s and 32 boundary clearing 6’s on their way to a record combined runs score of 771. Despite my favourite Australian fighting alley-cat David Warner and the returning Travis Head notching an opening stand of 175 and Glenn Maxwell, Josh Inglis and Pat Cummins combing for 116 late innings run, 388 was only 5 runs too many for a New Zealand team destined for the Semi-Finals and a match for anyone in their path. Rachin Ravindra scored another remarkable century and ultimately 116 from just 89 balls received. Daryl Mitchell looked in imperious touch as always on his way to a run-a-ball 54 and the chasing “Black Caps” of New Zealand were in the game, and the chase, until the final ball of the game and the dismissal of James Neesham for a bludgeoning 58 from 39 balls received.
As at the time of writing, Afghanistan are chasing 110 runs from 22 overs to beat Sri Lanka (come on Afghanistan!), the winner will end the day in 5th place in the table behind the top 4 of India, South Africa, New Zealand and Australia and the must be Semi-Finalists come two weeks time, and England are bottom with only a victory over Bangladesh to their name in a World Cup that can’t end soon enough for them.
Thanks for reading. There’s over 900 articles here to choose from in a cave of wonders not only dealing with matters of a cricketing heart. Take a look around and treat yourself! Take another peek at those two remarkable self-published books linked in the middle of the article too. Go on, it’s nearly Christmas!
I can at least console you with the fact that the men's Canadian soccer team is as bad as England at World Cup things (although our women's team has been tearing up the pitch for years).