The English, as a bowling side, are suffering from the same weakness as the Indians, in the middle overs. They don't have a bowler good enough to even bowl 5 good overs. If Collingwood has to bowl again, he has to work a great deal on his bowling, simply because the way he bowled in the last two matches, the team won't win a match! Clearly, a sign of lack of practice. The same can also be said about Michael Vaughan.
If the bowling side is a man down, the fielders have to support them. That was clearly lacking. Loose throws, inadequate backing up, slow response on the field and a total lack of co-ordination was responsible for converting as many as 4 run-out chances to runs, 7 singles to twos and so on. After Vaughan dropped Bichel or Bevan in PE in Feb 2003, which dropped the match, and their chance of going ahead, this is what Alan Wilkins said- actual quote:
Spoken by Alan Wilkins on ESPNSTAR's follow Through
Would you find an Australian named Michael Vaughan? He can't catch! He looked an absolute dud out there!
He didn't drop any, but he was definitely not doing much to help the cause. Nor was Geraint Jones, who seems to be wicketkeeping for the first time, since he made several elementary errors, which a good wickie wouldn't make. Never mind taking catches or completing stumpings or blocking byes, can't he even HOLD the ball? You wanted a wicketkeeper batsman and chose him- you now have another Rahul Dravid instead. That option is only good if you have 5 frontline bowlers. Chris Read was definitely missed.
That said, Jones could play as a specialist batsman (just like Stewart), with Read in the side, in place of Key. What has he done great? all I have seen of him are slow scores, lack of concentration and no help on the field, except for two slides. Jones can hit more 4's and 6's than Key, can't he? No doubt Read's batting is suspect, but at least one place in the team is used properly.
For England, the positives were the bowling of Harmison and the batting of Flintoff, but when they are out so early, negatives outnumber the positives. Blackwell, who has the ability to turn a match on its head by some hard hitting, as in the Champions Trophy in SL, was woefully out of form. An in-form Blackwell could be quite a handful. Clarke, Key and Anthony were just not good enough for the middle order. Looks like Graham Thorpe should be convinced out of retirement, but if he makes himself available, why don't they pick him? The aggressive, risk-taking Solanki needs a recall- of all the middle order bats tried so far, he seems to be the only one with any real talent, and he is effective on the field. Strauss has done rather well in this series and deserved the century. The biggest disappointment was Vaughan- he struggled a lot.
As for the bowling, Harmison did bowl a lot better than in past ODI's and should appear regularly if England have to take 10 wickets. Yet again, Anderson's weaknesses against quality batting sides have been shown up and he has to do something about bowling to good batting sides- he's not going to get average batting opposition all the time, nor will he bowl on typical English grass pitches more often. A little intelligence will help more. Flintoff was definitely missed. Gough still proves that he is a competent ODI bowler in this side. Mahmood had a hard debut, but hopefully he has learnt something. But the batsmen- call them to bowl, and they'll bowl rubbish. That needs a lot of work.
