Mid September with Rain Around

So with 2 weeks left to go of the English Cricket Season pretty much every competition would have been settled by now with the exception of who is going to top the Pro 40 Championship of course and Durham having wrapped up back to back County Championship titles for the first time in their history mainly without Paul Collingwood and Graham Onions for long periods of the year as they were both away on international duty with England.

And talking of England, with 3 games to play in their One Day International Series against Australia they are already 4-0 down and don't look as if they could beat Kenya convincingly at the moment. Which is exactly what everyone else seemed to think would happen when both Kevin Pietersen and Andrew Flintoff came down with injuries, and the fact that England have already won the ashes can't be helping them put in their best performances.

But with the darkness of winter coming and the rain already flooding my local pitch my attention is turning to the champions trophy which starts in 7 days time and will feature the best 8 sides in the world (so i don't know how England are playing in it) as they do battle to become the champions of 50 over cricket. With England having to play South Africa, Sri Lanka and New Zealand in their group they must be wondering how on earth a team that has looked so outclassed against Australia can face 2 of the best 3 teams in the country and be expected to take at least 2 wins out of those 3 games to get through to the Semi Finals.

So in about a months time i predict that we would not have won a single One Day international against Australia (I won't predict 7-0 because of the weather that is currently around with the 5th match starting later today) and also that we lose all 3 games in the Champions Trophy. Maybe once this has happened and people begin to realise that we are far far away from being a top side in International One Day cricket.

Until then I've just bought a new cricket bat (Newbery Gt335) so that I have plenty of time to knock it in before next season comes around and I really must get back to hitting it with the ball on a stick I got with it, I can't really be bothered to do it but maybe if I teach myself to spend 2 minutes on it every time England face a dot ball in their remaining One Day matches then it will soon be sufficiently knocked in.