As a coda to my previous post, Sri Lanka v New Zealand was a much more satisfactory match than Holland v England had been. It was not any closer, but in this match Sri Lanka won by playing good cricket (especially Rangana Herath whose off spin yielded extraordinary figures of 5-3), whereas England lost by playing bad cricket (the little of this match that I caught live combined with the comments of the experts made that obvious).
Having also heard the less than impressive interviews given by Messrs Broad and Giles – captain and coach – I think as my final comment on the winter England have just had that Broad cannot be retained as T20 captain and that Giles should no longer be a candidate for the role of permanent head coach.
In both matches the totals put up the sides batting first were comparatively small (133 and 119 respectively), and my reckoning is that neither chasing side were psychologically prepared for finding it a difficult task because those totals would not normally pose any great threat in a T20, so when things started going wrong for them the chasing sides went into a tailspin and the results ended up very conclusive.
English domestic action gets underway today, with the six of the counties in action against MCC University squads.
As usual I have some pictures for you…
aspiblog 