The English disease

[BoyBrumby]

I'm not defending this particular result, I was just making a more general point. It's really strange to take a diagnostic tone when asking why your sporting teams don't achieve sustained excellence, despite being able to occasionally win World Cups and reach number one in the world rankings. Not that it's necessarily a bad thing to have high expectations. But the reasons why England lost in UAE are obvious; their batsmen weren't experienced enough in those conditions. The more interesting question is why the English feel the need to ask, "what's WRONG with our team!?" even when, in the wider scheme of things, they're doing really, really well.

Why is it strange? Other countries manage it with fractions of the playing and financial resources we have.

I don't automatically expect England to win everything and I'm not an English chauvanist, but there does seem to be a pattern whereby England can climb to the summit but not breath the rarified air for very long.

 

[Burgey]

I think if we constantly bring up SA and choking we have to equally associated England with mediocrity. Only fair.

This.

 

[Arachnodouche]

I think there's a technical glitch against spin in most English batsmen when the bowler has good control over length and flight, and isn't just a Doherty-type spearing the ball in at 100 kph. Their dismissals revealed a distinct inability to read length. The bowling is fine and workmanlike in these conditions, but the batting will struggle, and that being the case, you'll always struggle to win Tests in the subcontinent. I can see Indian and SL packing their sides with spinners, spin being operational inside the first 10 overs of the innings, doctored wickets, etc. Herath, Ashwin, Ojha - they're all going to be a handful.

 

[Uppercut]

With the best will in the world, without the benefit of hindsight there's no way I'd be leaving one of Cook, Trott, Bell or Pietersen out for Hafeez.

But even if, by some miracle, Flower had a seers powers of prognostication and had played Hafeez ahead of (say) Bell that still leave a 4/7 split in favour of the defeated side.

I'm not buying "England weren't good enough" as the reason.

Hmm, I'd much sooner buy that they lost because they can't handle high-quality spin on a subcontinental turner than that they lost because of some deep-seated emotional issue buried within the English psyche.

The first test was a worse batting performance, I reckon. At least this time they collapsed to some excellent bowling on a favourable surface rather than to Gul's allsorts and Ajmal's nothing-breaks on a road.

 

[Xuhaib]

England let Ajmal get to their heads plain and simple. The success of Gul at Dubai & for Rehman at AD was partly because England were so preoccupied with Ajmal that they allowed another guy to sneak up on them.

 

[Spark]

I think there's a technical glitch against spin in most English batsmen when the bowler has good control over length and flight, and isn't just a Doherty-type spearing the ball in at 100 kph. Their dismissals revealed a distinct inability to read length. The bowling is fine and workmanlike in these conditions, but the batting will struggle, and that being the case, you'll always struggle to win Tests in the subcontinent. I can see Indian and SL packing their sides with spinners, spin being operational inside the first 10 overs of the innings, doctored wickets, etc. Herath, Ashwin, Ojha - they're all going to be a handful.

Agreed with that.

 

[Howe_zat]

I think there's a technical glitch against spin in most English batsmen when the bowler has good control over length and flight, and isn't just a Doherty-type spearing the ball in at 100 kph. Their dismissals revealed a distinct inability to read length. The bowling is fine and workmanlike in these conditions, but the batting will struggle, and that being the case, you'll always struggle to win Tests in the subcontinent. I can see Indian and SL packing their sides with spinners, spin being operational inside the first 10 overs of the innings, doctored wickets, etc. Herath, Ashwin, Ojha - they're all going to be a handful.

Yes. And while it may be a minor chink in the armour at times, sometimes you're going to be in a position where it's more akin to leaving the visor wide open.

The difficult part is finding something to do about it. Replacing the middle order isn't an option.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Hmm, I'd much sooner buy that they lost because they can't handle high-quality spin on a subcontinental turner than that they lost because of some deep-seated emotional issue buried within the English psyche.

The first test was a worse batting performance, I reckon. At least this time they collapsed to some excellent bowling on a favourable surface rather than to Gul's allsorts and Ajmal's nothing-breaks on a road.

Handled it well enough for a 70 run lead on first innings and the pitch wasn't exactly a raging Bunsen anyway, was it?

 

[Pothas]

Hmm, I'd much sooner buy that they lost because they can't handle high-quality spin on a subcontinental turner than that they lost because of some deep-seated emotional issue buried within the English psyche.

The first test was a worse batting performance, I reckon. At least this time they collapsed to some excellent bowling on a favourable surface rather than to Gul's allsorts and Ajmal's nothing-breaks on a road.

Yeah agree with this.

There is no doubt that the trend that Brumby has mentioned is a real one and hand wringing about 'why we are **** at sport' is one of Englands very favourite pastimes. I don't think that this side will go the same way as 2005, the cricket they played in Australia was by far and away the most consistent and ruthless I have ever seen from an England side. The bowling is top class and this series has only further proven that. What has happened here is a horrible reminder at a long standing Ineptidue at playing in these conditions, think most people expected it to be tough challenge but were confident that it could be overcome. In fact this is the worst we have played SC conditions in an awful long time.

 

[Cabinet96]

I wonder if you're reading too much into this tbh. Isn't struggling to win in the sub-continent (UAE is close enough) against decent opposition the common denominator here?

Yeah, this. If you look into it we have all our SC tours in a year and India have most (New Zealand an exception) of their out of SC tours in a year. It's no surprise that both teams "peaked" just before those tours.

And I strongly believe this is the hardest series for the English team to play in. Based on the conditions and attack facing them. None of the players have test experience in the UAE and mystery spinners are hardly a common thing in County Cricket. So I don't think we should be panicking yet. A loss in Sri Lana, however, and we may find out that this England team just might not be as good as first thought.

 

[sledger]

With regards to the football and rugby teams I think it's a case of just not being good enough/not being as good as everyone expects. From what little I know about the Rugby World Cup winning team, a great many of the core figures retired/became injured/were considered too old and then made a comeback and the players that came in just didn't match up to the expectations. The football team failing to build on 1966 is a bit of a strange one, from what I understand the 1970 team was pretty much as good as the one in 66, and barring the illness suffered by Gordon Banks which ruled him out of the Germany match it's unlikely the team would have been on the wrong end of what was pretty much a freak result. I would say every England football failure since has been a case of bad luck/not being very good.

In terms of cricket, in my lifetime, England just simply have not been very good in the subcontinent. Barring the odd result like England beating Pakistan in 2000 I can't remember anything to really get excited about.

In any case, I don't buy the claims over weakness in the English Psyche or whatever. More likely there are problems caused by an ingrained overconfidence.

 

[Spark]

Handled it well enough for a 70 run lead on first innings and the pitch wasn't exactly a raging Bunsen anyway, was it?

Think the first innings performance isn't as good as it looks on the scoreboard. Bult almost entirely built on one partnership between two of the more intelligent batsmen in the team and one late-order counterattacking 50. Middle order did very little.

 

[Pothas]

Handled it well enough for a 70 run lead on first innings and the pitch wasn't exactly a raging Bunsen anyway, was it?

Collapses do take on a momentum of their own though and happen to all sides. The reasos why so many of our players have been so poor against spin may be partially mental but I am sure it has nothing to do with the pressure of being number 1.

 

[Cabinet96]

Think the first innings performance isn't as good as it looks on the scoreboard. Bult almost entirely built on one partnership between two of the more intelligent batsmen in the team and one late-order counterattacking 50. Middle order did very little.

Yeah, even in the first innings the cracks were there to see. The performances of our 4-6 in this tour have been dreadful.

 

[Pothas]

In terms of cricket, in my lifetime, England just simply have not been very good in the subcontinent. Barring the odd result like England beating Pakistan in 2000 I can't remember anything to really get excited about.

In any case, I don't buy the claims over weakness in the English Psyche or whatever. More likely there are problems caused by an ingrained overconfidence.

There was certainly no overconfidence or complacency in that last performance. Think they ave just got themselves into a mental and technical mess in this particular series which has exaggerated long standing problems against spin bowling in these conditions which myself and others had ignored to certain extent given how they had belted less quality spin In easier conditions for the previous year.

 

[sledger]

There was certainly no overconfidence or complacency in that last performance. Think they ave just got themselves into a mental and technical mess in this particular series which has exaggerated long standing problems against spin bowling in these conditions which myself and others had ignored to certain extent given how they had belted less quality spin In easier conditions for the previous year.

Yeah, the last performance didn't suffer in this regard, but I think the mental mess which they undoubtedly did suffer from in this match would have been largely caused by the performance in the first match, which may have been in part (I suspect) caused by overconfidence. What I'm saying is pretty much total conjecture, but I would not have been at all surprised if the team (much like the majority of the public) had strolled up to this series high on confidence, imagining that they'd probably be given a good game but also that they'd emerge triumphant over the course of the series without it being too much of a taxing experience.

 

[Arachnodouche]

I think the psychological aspect plays itself into various sports, be it cricket, tennis, or football. Since England has had quite a painful recent history of serial underachievement in these three disciplines, it finds vent in unreal fan expectations every time the team does well, and vice versa. And that, in turn, is bound to influence performance on the field. It is a similar situation in India, exception being cricket is the only sport with mass exposure and interest, so those factors get accentuated tenfold.

 

[Agent Nationaux]

I wouldn't read too much into the Pakistan series. Despite being a more settled side, Pakistan still have a few of the same attributes, namely the killer instinct that they always demonstrate the moment a wicket falls. They also retain their unpredictability and can knock off the best team in the world when they get it together. I don't see this happening with Sri Lanka.

However the tip is not to tour Pakistan when you have just become number 1 or have just achieved a successful series. Maybe you guys should have toured Sri Lanka and India first.

 

[fredfertang]

Inclined to lean towards the sledger view - looked to me yesterday morning that they were all waiting for someone else to put their hand up and score the runs but, for once, no one did - I'm sure it won't happen again, and if it had to happen better it did now than against the Saffers in the summer

 

[Prince EWS]

Inclined to lean towards the sledger view - looked to me yesterday morning that they were all waiting for someone else to put their hand up and score the runs but, for once, no one did - I'm sure it won't happen again, and if it had to happen better it did now than against the Saffers in the summer

Why? You just lost the series...