Spirits Cricket

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.

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Kevin Pietersen has said that there shouldn’t be any mercy shown towards the players who are caught being involved in spot fixing.

In the previous edition of Indian Premier League, some spot fixing cases had come into limelight. It had been found that some players took money from the bookies and then, conceded a certain amount of runs in a particular over.

After investigation, the Board for control of cricket in India handed those players a life ban.

Pietersen is one of the few England players who play in the Indian Premier League and he is hugely popular in India. He has represented three different IPL teams so far. Currently, he plays for Delhi Daredevils.

When asked about his thoughts on spot fixing, Pietersen said, “I am very clear about it. If somebody is found being involved in these sorts of things, hand him a life ban.”

When asked about his experience of playing in the IPL, Pietersen said, “It’s a great tournament and BCCI should be given credit for that. They have worked hard for making this tournament interesting and they have succeeded in doing that.”

“I have a lot of fun playing in the IPL. The stadiums get jam packed in each and every match and especially, when we play our home games in Delhi, the atmosphere is always phenomenal.”

“We get tremendous support in Delhi. And, not only us, but, each and every side gets the same kind of support on its home ground.”

When asked about one of India’s greatest batsmen Rahul Dravid who has recently played the last game of his professional career, Pietersen said, “I have had the privilege of playing alongside him when I was a part of the Royal Challengers Bangalore side. He is a champion player and an awesome man.”

The English top order batsman, Jonathan Trott, has said that he is hitting the ball well and he will be back amongst the runs pretty soon.

Trott hasn’t been that impressive in the ongoing Ashes series so far. He has managed to score just 106 runs in the first two test matches at a modest average of 26.50. In a couple of innings, Trott hasn’t even managed to open his account. (more…)

The England cricket team has defeated Ireland in the one off ODI played at Dublin. England won the match by 6 wickets.

It was a great crowd out there at Malahide. More than 90% spectators were the Irish supporters and they were making immense noise. They had massive expectations from the home team and they wouldn’t have been disappointed at the end of the match. Although the Irish team lost, they went down fighting and their effort was appreciable. (more…)

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