MUMBAI – Andrew Strauss wore the look of a man who bought the winning lottery ticket, lost it and then found the slip for second prize. The England skipper is well used to the slings and arrows of outrageous cricket fortune in his five years in the job but seven hours of fluctuating fortunes in their incredible World Cup tie with India in Bangalore on Sunday took some beating.
The man who has placed such emphasis on “smart” cricket could only shake his head at the brainless way his team approached the match’s closing overs which so nearly cost them defeat by a team which had looked so dead and buried that some of their fans had left the stadium to avoid the last rites. As Strauss, deservedly man of the match for his majestic 158, summed up later: “In some ways we’re happy — and in some ways we’re distraught.”
As the dust settles in Group B and Monday’s excitable headlines in India and England newspapers are consigned to wastebins, Strauss will reflect on lessons from the match. Like his Indian counterpart Mahendra Singh Dhoni, his problems seem largely confined to the field. Any team which can reach 338, as both did on Sunday, is firing nicely with the bat.
Biggest concern for Strauss will be the form of Jimmy Anderson, his main strike bowler, who has so far looked a shadow of the man who terrorised the Australian order in England’s 3-1 Ashes win just a couple of months ago. True, Anderson like many seamers here in the sub-continent, is toiling towards a nervous breakdown trying to extract life out of the dodo-dead pitches which seem designed solely to favour batsmen and fret fast bowlers.
Yet figures of 1-91, the worst figures by any English bowler in a World Cup, tell their own story from the India game, and Anderson’s attack partner Tim Bresnan (5-48) showed what could be done with a little guile and full, straight bowling.
Whatever Strauss says publicly — “Jimmy’s got a lot of skills, anyone who writes a guy of that quality off is pretty naive” — he must be weighing up his options. Anderson is becoming an expensive luxury for England.
Stuart Broad offers him far more towards the tail-end with the bat and so far has looked the much more potent force with the new ball too. Broad grabbed five-wicket hauls against Canada and Pakistan in warm-up wins and took two more in England’s less than convincing Cup opening win over the Netherland with six wickets and eight balls to spare.
He was not available to play against India with a “Delhi-belly” — media here blamed dodgy sushi — which left him unable to do anything but lie in his hotel bed and tweet encouragement to his team mates from his phone. England next play Ireland, another potential banana skin, on Wednesday in Bangalore and it will be interesting to see who makes way for the 24-year-old if he recovers his strength in time for that.
All-rounder Michael Yardy, often nothing more than fodder for big-hitting batsmen, replaced Broad on Sunday and did his cause no harm in the latter overs of India’s innings with some arrowed, accurate deliveries which proved extremely hard to score heavily off. Overall, Strauss should approach the Ireland match in a positive frame of mind. Many here had written off the English as too tired and frankly not particularly interested in winning this World Cup after their Ashes exertions. The team, so went the theory, simply do not care about 50-overs cricket.
