It has become fashionable among professionals to describe this as the slog-sweep
Posted in General on 22. Oct, 2010
It has become fashionable among professionals to describe this as the slog-sweep. It is more slog than sweep.Trescothick never seemed to be in a blazing hurry, which maybe is the secret of the of the especially rapid and thunderous one-day innings. He struck 13 fours and two sixes and his obviously pre-ordained decision that he would go after the spinners was as bold as it was magnificent.After his illness he must have been close to withdrawing beforehand, a fate that did befall Graham Thorpe who was forced to pull out an hour before the match started. An England player a day is going down with a stomach complaint, which speaks volumes for modern fitness and dietary regimes.The toss may not have been crucial to the outcome, as it used to be at Lord’s on early September cup final mornings, but winning it was on the upside of useful. Of the seven floodlit internationals to be played here, five had been won by the side batting first and another involved Kenya.Hussain hardly raised an eyebrow. If he has spent much of his captaincy career either tossing or calling incorrectly he has spent a good deal of the rest of it trying to prove that it hardly matters.India started at the expected lick through Sachin Tendulkar and the captain, Sourav Ganguly. Had there been a roof on the stands as they went out to bat it would have come off “See how they cheer the Indian skipper,” said some wag.
All the acclaim was for Tendulkar.Just as they had got in and were denying England’s sterling ground fielding they got out, both to an exultant Andrew Flintoff. To his delight he speared one through Tendulkar’s gate and then persuaded Ganguly to poke a top-edged pull to mid-wicket.India then built their innings around Dinesh Mongia. England never let them become rampant but they never had reined in the home side either There were lessons. Paul Collingwood is probably not up to the required standard as a bowler (a yard, maybe two, too slow, a shade too erratic) but it is well that England are discovering such matters now, not in the World Cup 13 months’ hence.Of the other bowlers, only Ashley Giles had a real off-day but he has the temperament to overcome that by the next match on Tuesday.
The selection of Darren Gough and Matthew Hoggard as England’s new opening attack was justified. They did not take a wicket with the new ball but they both came back as willing workhorses. It was tough on Andrew Caddick, who was omitted, but selectors have to make tough decisions Hussain, of course, would deny this His ethos is that you simply pick the best team “That’s not hard, it’s easy.”Gough has not changed. When he took his wicket, Laxman clipping him to mid-wicket, he ran down the ground and mouthed for his own benefit as much as that for that of his team-mates: “Goughy’s back.” And so he is.A mention too for Jeremy Snape, possibly the slowest spinner in world cricket, and one who is not always on Gloucestershire’s bowling list. His little dibbly-dobbly change of pace somehow bemused the Indians.