Winning but not convincing. South Africa vs England 2016

England have won a series in South Africa, yet end a successful comeback from the woes of UAE with a humbling defeat in the final test. There is nothing strange about this – sides that win a test series early, often lose the last one; Australia kept English hopes alive for years by letting us have a victory in the 6^th test. However, the manner in which this game has played out exposes old problems that England still haven’t resolved. South Africa, losers in the series, can feel like they are the ones moving forward.

Reflections on England, Wales and Fiji, RWC 2015

Everyone could see that England should have won that game. And it’s not just that the England captain made a bad call when it came to the penalty which England could have kicked to tie the game. Perhaps that would have been a good idea, but really they should have killed the game off earlier.

Reflections on the Ashes 2013 so far from Chester-Le-Street

I was lucky enough to have very good seats for days 3 and 4 of the 4^th Ashes Test at Chester-le-Street last Sunday and Monday. It gave me a chance to assess properly how these teams are doing at the moment, so I thought I’d share some thoughts on the matter.

 

Australia

 

On Watching the 1st test: Australia vs British and Irish Lions 22nd June 2013

Second Half.

Stomach-gripping tension.
Do we trust the fates too much to believe
this lead will hold?
Could half-perfect Halfpenny’s half-freakish, half-time miss
be the code for the way this will unfold?

Nerves seem to have got the players too.
Bodies fly into bodies round the fringes of the breakdowns.
Errors abound:
an overcooked kick, a pass spilt
a rolling maul driving headless into touch
and then relief.

Kevin Pietersen

Surry vs Nottinghamshire, The Oval, Day 3 Sep 6^th 2012

 

Two balls from Fletcher. Kevin Pietersen is 9 not out. The first is a standard seam bowler’s back of a length delivery on off or middle-and-off. KP skips down the wicket to get to the pitch of the ball and, in trademark one-foot-skanking style, he on-drives with the hard crack of a thick bat, perfect timing and strong forearms to the mid-on boundary for four.

Pakistan vs England, 2nd Test, Abu Dhabi, 25th-28th Jan 2012

For the sake of the contest in the third test, it’s a shame England couldn’t finish off this test match that they had so nearly managed to win, but you can’t begrudge Pakistan a series victory after all they’ve been through recently and there’s nothing like thrashing your opponents 2-0. They’ve got a great captain in Misbah Ul-Haq, who makes all the right calls in the field and leads from the front with his batting, and even without their two incarcerated fast bowlers, their bowling attack was still too much for England’s uber-successful batting line-up. England lost chasing Pakistan’s meagre second-innings lead of 144, something they haven’t done since 1902. Obviously, as Michael Vaughan said on the BBC, “This England team has a problem against spin”.

France 7 vs. New Zealand 8 23rd October 2011

How I wish I’d been wrong! I said France can beat New Zealand but won’t (see previous) and that’s exactly how it looked at Eden Park as New Zealand stood firm, Trinh-Duc missed his kick at goal and Craig Joubert remained reluctant to penalise All-blacks at the breakdown.

Australia 6 v New Zealand 20 16th October 2011

Southern Hemisphere rugby once again less exciting than (England aside) Northern. New Zealand, my perhaps not very interesting prediction as eventual world cup winners, grind out a hard, frenetic, highly competitive but essentially attritional victory over Australia.

England 12 v France 19 8th October 2011

As I predicted at the start of the tournament, England didn’t make it past the quarter finals and as I wrote that I would be, I’m glad they’re out.

Ireland 10 v Wales 22 8th October 2011

I think it was after Ireland beat Australia, when I read Eddie Butler describe Ireland as playing with a ‘passionate fury or a furious passion’. This morning, our time, Wales beat them at their own game.