Character of side is there for all to see
What a magnificent game of cricket! It has been a brilliant tournament and it’s one that I love. anyone who was here witnessed one of the great t20 matches. It was won, it was lost, then won, then lost. No side really deserved to lose it.
Everyone has spoken about the skill of this England side over the past year, particularly their shot-making and their ability in the field. But they’ve shown so much character as well, not least in situations when they’ve appeared to be dead and buried — whether that’s against South africa in Mumbai, afghanistan in Delhi or when they were 23 for three in the final.
they should never have been in the situation where they could win the game. It was great captaincy by Morgan — or whoever came up with the plan to have Joe Root open the bowling. his two wickets got them ahead of the game.
they bowled and fieldedlded brilliantly, but they wereere 20 runs short with thee bat when it came too the final over, largely because of the way they played leg-spinner Samuel Badree early on.
It seems their nemesis is still unor-thodox spin — or, inn this case, a lack of spin.in. they played him as if he was Shane Warne, butut they should have played him like he was anil Kumble.
One area of England’s game that has been particularly good in this tournament is their death bowling from Ben Stokes and Chris Jordan, but it just shows how the game has changed when a No 9 comes in and hits four sixes.
Ian Bishop told me to watch out for Carlos Brathwaite — ‘he’s going to be a superstar’ — and you can see why he thinks that. he was remarkable in the final over.
In my day, you would have had Curtly ambrose strolling out at No 9, but the game is never over when someone like Brathwaite is lurking in the lower order.
to be fair to Stokes, he didn’t get it horribly wrong. he was a couple of inches out on each occasion and, as a result, he was absolutely nailed for six each time. I’m a massive fan of Stokes — he’s always the guy who puts his hand up in pressure situations. he always wants to bowl the final over, and in the field you see him running from one side to the other as he’s desperate to be in a position to take a catch.
If you’re that sort of cricketer and you put yourself under pressure every single day, then occasionally it will go against you. But I’d much rather have someone like that in my team thanth someone who hides whenw you need him. StokesS is someone I’d wantw to take into battle with me.
he will be absolutely distraught, especially withw Marlon Samuels ata the non-striker’s end. there’st no love lost betweenbet the pair and it will rub salt in Stokes’s wounds.wound But he’ll learn from thithis andd come back better and stronger, as will this England side.
We should be so proud of where they are now, especially considering how shambolic they were a year ago at the World Cup.
We should be proud of what andrew Strauss has done, what trevor Bayliss and Paul Farbrace have done, what Eoin Morgan has done, and most importantly, what the players have done.
they weren’t quite good enough yesterday but, crikey, they’ve been fun to watch and they’re playing proper, modern white-ball cricket. they’re certainly a side to invest in.