Spirits Cricket

The recently retired English batsman, Kevin Pietersen, is finding it hard to score runs in the Pepsi IPL 2014. He has returned to action after getting rid of his finger injury and he clearly seems rusty at the moment. Batting for his team Delhi Daredevils in the last game versus the Kolkata Knight Riders, Pietersen looked completely out of sorts against the spinners. He didn’t have the clue which way the ball was turning. Eventually, he got so frustrated that he went for a suicidal run and was run out.

Pietersen needs to raise his game pretty soon if he has to guide the Daredevils through to the playoffs. That’s looking almost an impossible task at the moment, but, Pietersen has done wonderful things in the past. So, people are still not writing his team off.

Pietersen’s bad form so far might be surprising for his fans, but, as far as the experts and the former players are concerned, they are not surprised at all. According to them, Pietersen had not played enough top level cricket coming into this tournament and on top of that, he got injured as well. So, there was no way that he could have come all guns blazing. He needs a bit of time.

But, everyone knows that Pietersen is not an ordinary player. He was in a similar position in 2012 as well during the test series versus India. He had struggled to put bat on ball in the first test at Ahmedabad and was criticized a lot for that. A few days later, in the second test, he played one of the all-time greatest test innings on a turning track. One should not be surprised if he does something similar in the next couple of IPL games.

Online video Ranking: five / five

Video Ranking: four / 5

Online video Ranking: / 5

The England Cricket Team will take on West Indies in the first match of the One Day International series at Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Antigua on Friday.

Stuart Broad would be captaining the Three Lions in the match and he would like to get his team off to a winning start.

It’s only a 3-match series. So, losing the first game means you are under huge amount of pressure going into the next two and no team would want to be in that situation.

So, both the teams would go hard at each other in Friday’s game and thus, it’s likely to be one heck of a contest.

The stadium might not be totally full and the reason behind that is the absence of the West Indies superstar Chris Gayle who injured himself again while playing against Ireland last week. However, a decent number of people are expected to turn up.

On the place of Gayle, it’s Dwayne Smith who will open for West Indies. He is also a very attacking batsman, but, not as much as the Jamaican left hander.

As far as England is concerned, it would be interesting to see the composition of their top order. They are without Alastair Cook and Ian Bell. So, they will have to go with an entirely new and inexperienced opening pair.

England does have some experience in the middle and lower order though with Eoin Morgan and Ravi Bopara there.

It will also be a test of the captaincy skills of Stuart Broad. He has captained England in the T20s, but, that’s a different format.

The Antigua pitch has helped the slower bowlers in most of the matches so far and it probably would behave in the same manner this time around as well.

Video Score: 4 / five