Rafiq: We are out for revenge
PAUL Collingwood reckons his time as the only man to lift an ICC trophy for England might be coming to an end.
The all-rounder captained England to glory in the World Twenty20 in 2010, the only major tournament the country has ever won.
That could be about to change as Eoin Morgan is spearheading a charge towards the Champions Trophy, with England winning all three group games on their way to the semi-finals – where they will face Pakistan who beat Sri Lanka in the final Group B match at Cardiff’s Sophia Gardens by three wickets.
Collingwood, who scored 5092 one-day international runs in 197 matches, believes Morgan’s men are the favourites on home soil.
“They have got a great chance,” he said. “We have all been watching the side over the last two years, they are a powerful, dynamic team and I would say they would be favourites.
“They have proven themselves over the last two years, they have been all the way around the world and won games.
“If you look at the side you haven’t just got one matchwinner in there now, pretty much the full line-up are matchwinners and if they can perform on the day they can win the game for England. That is a great position to be in.
“They have been favourites from the start. Opposition don’t like playing against them any more, with the explosive batting they have got and recently also the way they have bowled. They have every chance now and let’s hope Eoin Morgan becomes the second person to do it.” THE West Indies just about restored some pride as they levelled their One-Day International series with Afghanistan courtesy of a four-wicket win in St Lucia.
The Windies, who are not playing at the Champions Trophy tournament in England due to their poor world ranking, sank to a new low when they became the first full ICC member side other than Zimbabwe to lose to Afghanistan in the first ODI.
However, they got the series back to 1-1 as they bowled their tourists out for 135 and then chased down the target for the loss of six wickets.
Shannon Gabriel, Jason Holder, Alzarri Joseph and Ashley Nurse all took two wickets as Afghanistan were AZEEM Rafiq believes Yorkshire are primed to gain revenge on Surrey for last year’s Royal London one-day Cup semi-final defeat when the two meet again in today’s play-off tie at Headingley.
Yorkshire are aiming for a third straight semi-final appearance in the Royal London 50 and will hope to make it third time lucky by reaching Lord’s at the start of July.
They were beaten in the last four by Gloucestershire at Headingley in 2015, a match which Rafiq didn’t feature in, and then by Surrey last year.
The memory of the latter is still fresh in the off-spinner’s mind, but he is confident the Vikings are well placed for success this year even if they will be without their England players.
“Surrey are one of the strongest teams in the country,” said Rafiq, who has played a significant part in Yorkshire’s run of six wins from eight group matches this season.
“They’re a big, well run club. We lost the semi-final last year, so it would be nice to do a number on them.
“Six wins out of eight, we couldn’t have asked for much more. It would have been brilliant to get a home semi-final, but you just get on with it.
“An extra game and performing well, taking that confidence into the dismissed in 37.3 overs, with Gulbadin Naib posting 51 off 73 balls.
After a strong start to their reply, the Windies again struggled with the mystery of Rashid Khan, who had figures of three for 26, but Shai Hope’s unbeaten 48 saw them home with 11 overs to spare. ■■The draws for the Spenser Wilson Halifax Cricket semi-final, may work in our favour.
“Worcestershire (who await the winners in Saturday’s semi-final at New Road) won’t have played a oneday game in a while.”
Rafiq is Yorkshire’s leading 50-over wicket-taker this year with 15 as well as hitting a brutal 52 not out in their final group win over Leicestershire at Headingley last month.
The batting, he says, was particularly pleasing having done a lot of work in the winter to bring him back up to speed having spent 18 months out of the game from the end of 2014 to midway through 2016.
“I’ve been working really hard,” he explained.
“I was a little bit frustrated when I came back last year that I wasn’t able to make more of an impact with the bat in some tough situations.
“At the end of that final Championship match against Middlesex at Lord’s, I said to myself ‘I don’t ever want to be in a situation where I can’t get it over the boundary.’
“The one-day semi-final against Surrey, I was batting with Tim Bresnan and was trying to contribute as much as I could and was getting really frustrated that I wasn’t able to do so.
“At Lord’s on that last day, I went in in a tough situation, but if I’d done a bit more work and had a bit more
*Booth w/o v Birchencliffe; Northowram HT 292-9 (Cole 66, Clee 43, Sajjid 5-54), *Bridgeholme 265 (Ali 44, Hemblys 6-39); *Illingworth St Mary’s 67 (Belfield 4-24), Southowram 68-2; *Mount 239 (Ane Rawat 48, Ravat 46), Triangle 240-5 (Gledhill 77*, Stocks confidence, it could have been different.
“I’d missed the last two years when the power hitting was coming into the game. “I don’t want to feel like that again.” Yorkshire finished second in the North Group to Surrey’s third in the South, but they will be without their five England players on Champions Trophy duty, who all played at least half of the group stage.
Rafiq, however, is not worried by their absence.
He added: “Everyone knows when our England boys are here, it’s a pretty phenomenal side. You go in there and think ‘you know what, we’re going to win today.’
“But we’ve done it without them. The young lads have taken responsibility to win games against Derbyshire and Leicestershire. 45); *Mytholmroyd 354-7 (Conway 121, Sutcliffe 100, J Earle 56), Jer Lane 219 (T Khan 52, Pinfield 41); *Outlane 426-8 (Mitton 137, Westwood 89, Blagborough 65, Ainley 44), Low Moor HT 260 (Ramzan 79, Briscoe 42, Lawton 5-49); *Sowerby St Peter’s lost to Copley by 4 wickets; *Thornton w/o v Old Town
*Copley 258-6 (Bizley 96*, Chew 56), Booth 151 (Simpson 5-14); Bridgeholme 341- 8 (S Mahmood 134, Hudson 112*, Ahmed 43), *Cullingworth 104; Illingworth St Mary’s 246 (Watson 58, T Watson 53), *Jer Lane 249-5 (Laban 82, N Khan 58, Sivyer 50); *Oxenhope beat Sowerby St Peter’s by 12 runs; *Queensbury 201 (Jas Slator 53, Burnside 5-36), Mytholmroyd 206-4 (Barker 104); *Sowerby Bridge beat Mount by 7 wickets; Warley 189-8 (Sarwar 59), *SBCI 74 (Riaz 4-14), *Triangle 226 (Wood 76, Hellawell 4-45), Outlane 213 (Hellawell 106, Palin 4-15)
“The way we’ve gone about our cricket has been really impressive.
“We’ve played entertaining cricket, and we’ve left everything out there for the team’s cause.
“We’ve been brilliantly led by Gary Ballance. Everyone sees the on-field stuff, but the off-field he’s been absolutely phenomenal.”
And the Tykes got the perfect boost going into the clash as they completed a dramatic three run win over Somerset on the final day of their County Championship Division One meeting at Taunton.
Ryan Sidebottom finished with match figures of eight wickets for 115 runs as Yorkshire edged the contest.
The veteran left-arm seamer took three of the last four wickets to fall at Taunton as the home side, chasing 262 to win, crashed from 231-6 to 258 all out.