WOW: England show that they can play cricket

I may have to stop making predictions on England's cricket performances as for some reason whenever I say that they are going to lose they seem to respond. Firstly at 4-0 down to Australia I said that I thought they would lose every game and the series 7-0, they then went on and won the 7th game to lose the series 6-1, then just last week I said that they would lose every game at the ICC Champions Trophy before the promptly beat Sri Lanka and then knocked out the host South Africa just a few days later to qualify for the semi finals.

It is the game against South Africa that I want to focus on today as I thought it was a fantastic game and really underlines just how good 50 over cricket can be and why we as fans of the sport need it. So with Andrew Strauss and Graeme Smith walking out to the middle to do the toss in front of a large South African crowd and everyone was saying that whoever won the toss would have to bat first on a pitch that was full of runs.

So England won the toss and batted first and after a mediocre opening stand both the openers were back in the dressing room with the score on 59-2 and it looked as if we could once again fail to use a brilliant batting wicket, until Owais Shah was joined in the middle by Paul Collingwood and the 2 combined to put on a stand of 163 at just over a run per ball. What was good about this was not the amount of runs that were scored but the manner in which they were scored. One of the main criticisms of England over the past few years is that they haven't cleared the boundary enough but within this partnership was 7 maximums of which Shah hit 6 of them and it was unfortunate for all of us when he departed for a brilliant 98.

That dismissal however only bought Eoin Morgan to the crease and what happened next was the stuff of legend as he elevated the score from 222-3 to 323-8 at the end of the innings with himself clearing the rope 5 times in a brilliant 67 off just 34 balls, although it was a shame that his strike rate fell just under the 200 mark. But with his late impetus, especially in the powerplay overs we were able to post a score of over 300, a score that England had never before been able to defend.

so with 323 on the board England came out feeling pretty confident but a fantastic innings of 141 from Graeme Smith almost threatened to snatch the victory from England but with wickets falling regularly at the other end (the next highest South African score was 36 from AB De Villiers) and 3 wickets each for both Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson South Africa eventually finished on 301-9 and they were out of the competition.

So with England qualifying for the semi finals thanks to New Zealands win against Sri Lanka it means the last game of the group, England vs New Zealand, will only determine who joins them in the Semi Finals with both New Zealand and Sri Lanka still able to make it. So with England already through and both Pakistan and Australia looking as if they will qualify from the other group I hereby predict that England will not win another game in the competition and definitely will not make it through to the final (lets hope I'm wrong again).