Oh dear

74-8 currently. Not looking good for England. Hopes currently are with Samit Patel and Stuart Broad.

I didn’t predict a winner before this game, because it was simply too close to call. Nothing to do with skill, experience or ability, it is all on bottle. If England get 100, Stanford’s Superstars will still need some bottle to get them home.

 

Pietersen expresses concerns ahead of $20m Stanford Match

The much anticipated match up between England and the Stanford Superstars is edging ever closer. Kevin Pietersen’s team will be taking part in the ‘winner takes all’ event in Antigua on Saturday night. However, ahead of this contest, Pietersen has some major concerns regarding the lighting at the ground, writes Thomas Rooney, exclusively for The Village Cricketer.

The England captain had his side do some emergency fielding practice during the victory over Middlesex on Sunday night after several players dropped chances that would normally have been routine. After this match, Paul Collingwood suggested that the lights at the ground were to blame as they were ‘different than any other set’ they have played under.

Now, it seems that Pietersen goes along with this theory. Speaking ahead of the match with Trinidad and Tobago, the Hampshire man said that ‘there could be someone under a $20m catch on Saturday’. This is obviously something he is worried about, given the situation with the lights.

The unique and potentially detrimental reason for visibility being poor is that the floodlights are lower than normal at the ground to avoid any danger from a near by airport. This is the reason being suggested anyway.

Pietersen isn’t just concerned about the lighting though. The pitch being used has proved very sluggish and has made runs extremely hard to come by. This meant the use of spin proved effective in the previous game, so this is an option England will consider ahead of Saturday’s match.

This all seems very bizarre to me. All this fuss was made about the money Sir Alan Stanford has and the amount of money that is at stake in this tournament. However, despite all this, they are playing on a ground where they can’t see the ball and on a pitch that won’t allow many runs to be scored. When this first came about, my first thought was that it would be a run filled contest with lots of entertaining cricket. Now I’m not even sure this will be the case.

I guess that’s why I can’t get excited about the prospect of this match – at all. I won’t even be placing a cricket bet on the game. As things stand, it seems that a group of players are going to win a crazy amount of money for dropping catches and posting totals of just over the 100 mark. They would have earned every penny wouldn’t they?

Putting my feeling about the circumstances of which this game is being played aside, I think it is a game that England will win. The cricket odds will certainly be favouring them to do so. They are a settled team and have put together a good run of results recently. Captain Pietersen will make sure they are prepared for the challenge ahead and will drum into his players the fact that there is a game of cricket to be won.

Without doubt though, even if they don’t admit so, the players will have one thing on their mind – money. That’s the reality. It’s also a reality that certain individuals will be responsible for their team-mates losing a great deal of money.

As always, a dropped catch, a run-out, a bad spell of bowling or a poor shot could be the difference between winning and losing. The players will know this and I suppose my main reason for me wanting England to win is that none of the player’s future confidence is effectied by a very, very costly mistake.

 

Stanford pitches

Watching England v Middlesex in the Stanford 20/20 tournament. This pitch seems to have some pace, Stephen Finn’s got a couple to go through head high, while the one used for the game between the Stanford Superstars and Trinidad & Tobago was a far slower, lower affair. Apparently that one had more than 40 hours worth of work done on it with the heavy roller, which seems to have squashed all the life out of it. The slow, low one is the pitch that will be used for the big $20million match. Nasser Hussain reckons it’ll be the strong, “whackers” of the ball that will suit it.

 

Village cricket administration from Yorkshire

Incredible that this could happen at all, even more so in the professional ranks, however reports are circulating that Yorkshire County Cricket Club is facing allegations that they fielded an ineligible player during the group stage of the Twenty20 Cup.

According to Sky Sports, Azeem Rafiq is alleged not to hold a British passport, and as such was not properly registered to play in the game against Nottinghamshire.

The Press Association is another source to read.

Bizarrely, this all came to the fore while a shed load of Geordies were waiting to watch the Durham v Yorkshire Twenty20 Cup quarter final at the Riverside this evening. Proper village.

 

The winner takes it all, the loser flies away (almost)

Another game another disappointing run chase. Desperate cricket, desperate result, another desperate competition. England invented Twenty20 and is being shown how to play it by the rest of the world. Collingwood reckons England were “ten per cent off the mark… one innings and one partnership away from winning the game.” Apparently England can qualify if NZ beat the Saffas, England beat India and India beat the Saffas too… then it is on run rate.

 

Are you watching Peter Moores?

In April The Village Cricketer tipped Luke Wright as an England star of the future in its masterplan to win the next cricket World Cup. Last night he came of age (headlines below). Get him involved.

Guardian: Wright’s stunning century lifts Sussex after Key comes unstuck
Telegraph: A thunderous innings by Luke Wright
The Argus: Luke Wright powered to the third-fastest hundred in Twenty20 history

 

“I’m bitter because I’m Yorkshire”

There is a group on Facebook with 209 members (not much t’tinternet on Ilkley Moor) called I’m better than you because I’m from Yorkshire. In the words of the only decent Yorkshireman ever (Boycs), what roooooooobish! The only good thing that is better in Yerrrkshire than the mighty red rose county is the tea…. You want the proof? Here, ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! Good win for the mighty Lancashire, especially when you consider we don’t have Flintoff, Cork, Mahmood, Chapple and Anderson playing.

What would Boycs say…..

“What’s going on, Lancashire thrashing Yorkshire? That’s good cricket that is. Yorkshire playing with bad technique, bad technique that is. Lancashire batsman could smash Yorkshire booolers with a stick of rhubarb! Yorkshire are rooooobish!”