England v NZ, NatWest Series, Chester-le-Street

One-day quicket!

The Paper Round by Freddie Auld

June 30, 2004

As the England one-day side plummeted to their second thrashing in three days in the NatWest Series, the English journalists took advantage of the early finish to get their claws into the woeful performance:

Michael Vaughan: under fire from the media © Getty Images

"England contrived to achieve the near-impossible yesterday by producing a collective batting performance inferior to the derided effort of two days earlier," wrote Richard Hobson in The Times. "Embarrassingly, a floodlit game was completed more than three hours ahead of schedule, before twilight had the chance to kick in, defeat stemming from hot-headed shot selection and lack of gumption. James Franklin, the left-arm seam bowler, could not have found victims much easier to snare when he was playing for Rishton in the Lancashire League a few weeks ago."

John Westerby, also in The Times, summed the situation up by saying: "While England have played musical chairs with their batting line-up recently in an attempt to create harmony among their top order, the only noises emanating from that end of the orchestra at the moment are bum notes."

In the Daily Telegraph, Derek Pringle also put the blame on England's clueless batsmen: "Most of them were toying with disaster with their gung-ho approach in challenging conditions." He continued, "the shot-a-ball culture prevailing among England's top order appears to treat every pitch as a belter and every bowler as a dobber in a misguided quest to score 250-plus, irrespective of conditions.

"At one stage wickets seemed to be falling every seven runs, which meant spectators were treated to endless replays of Eminem's Lose Yourself a strident ditty that contains the lyric: `You only get one shot, so don't miss your chance.' It was prescient too. Most of England's batsmen did only have one shot - an awful one."

As usual, The Sun didn't hold back. "One-day quicket!" read the headline, under which John Etheridge was just as scathing. "England produced another shocking performance yesterday that plunges the whole future of this one-day team into doubt," he decreed. "Maybe the thief who pillaged their dressing room also stole England's batting brains as well as a complete set of coaching manuals. It is almost impossible to comprehend -- but this was an even worse display than their inept effort against West Indies at Trent Bridge on Sunday."

"Frankly, that was rubbish!" ran the The Mirror. "This woeful defeat extended Vaughan's record of England losing every one-day international in which they have batted first, and winning in every run chase, since he took over 20 games ago," Mike Walters pointed out. "Just as they had shot their bolt far too early against the Windies at Trent Bridge, England were a busted flush inside the first 20 overs."

So what can be done now? Well, Mark Nicholas, writing in the Daily Telegraph, had an idea. "Three consecutive World Cup failures are an embarrassment to a country which plays so much of the limited-overs stuff in its own first-class structure," he said. "Specialists must be chosen and used in the position which led to their choice. If England put the successful, confident and better-balanced Test team on the park at Headingley tomorrow, would they fare better than the one in their place? Yes, quite probably, is the answer." He's got a point.

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