Spirits Cricket

The England and Wales Cricket Board has named a relatively unchanged squad for the England Cricket Team that will travel to the Indian sub continent to take on the Sri Lankans, fresh from their victory in the One Day International Commonwealth Bank Tri Series in Australia over the Baggie Greens. Having been mauled 3-0 by Pakistan in the Test series in the United Arab Emirates, the side bounced back to win the One Day International series 4-0 before triumphing 2-1 in the Twenty 20 International series.

The players of the team were also left frustrated at the dismal showing in the Test series against Pakistan, which had not played a top tier side in more than 2 years, their last Test series, ironically, coming against England which has courted more controversy due to the spot fixing scandal involving the Pakistan players.

With the ICC World Twenty 20 Championships slated to be held in Sri Lanka in September this year, the England Cricket Team, as the defending champions would like to get as much practice in the Sri Lankan wickets and get acquainted with the conditions as they can with a view to defending their crown later in the year.

But one thing that all the players of the side will be looking to do would be to salvage some pride after their hammering at the hands of Pakistan and they want to make a statement by doing the same to another team from the sub continent on their own turf. Although this sounds very easy, the England Cricket Team players know that it will not be an easy task and they will have to play out of their skins to get a positive result from the series in order to restore some pride and prove themselves to be the number one Test side.

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The England Cricket team is ranked no. 1 in tests, and they have recently beaten the world champions, India, very comprehensively. They whitewashed the men in blue 4-0, and would be looking to carry forward the momentum in the upcoming test series against Pakistan, due to be held in UAE in the latter half of January. The team will be riding high on confidence as they are ranked no. 1 and have some of the best players in the world in their team.

But defeating Pakistan won’t be an easy task as they are just fresh from thumping series victories over Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. They will be looking to continue their spectacular run in the upcoming series as well. Being the underdogs in the competition can be to their advantage, as they can play without the added pressure of expectations. The same isn’t true of the English side. Being the best cricket team in the world, according to the ICC rankings, comes with its share of niggles. Every time the team goes out to play a match, the whole world expects them to win. This added expectation creates a tremendous amount of pressure on the players as well as the team management.

The pitches in UAE are expected to be similar to the ones in Pakistan, so the men in green have that added advantage as well. The sides, however, are very evenly matched in all departments. In the pace department, Pakistan have the likes of Umar Gul and Wahab Riaz while England can boast of young talent like Stuart Broad and James Anderson.

The Pakistan spin department will be headed by Abdur Rehman and Saeed Ajmal while their English counterparts are Graeme Swann. The batting lineup for the Pakistan side consists of Misbah-ul Haq, Younis Khan and Umar Akmal while the England batting lineup consists of Kevin Pietersen, Ian Bell among others. This promises to be a mouth-watering competition

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