England captain Andrew Strauss stunned by Ireland loss
A shell-shocked English captain Andrew Strauss was left with plenty to ponder over his team’s ignominious 3 wicket defeat at the hand of minnows http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Ireland-c751 at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bangalore.
The stunning defeat was never on the cards after the three time finalists were in the driving seat mid-way through the Irish innings. The minnows had stuttered to 111/5 and were staring at a crushing defeat in their pursuit of 328
runs.
Within a matter of hour, the usually disciplined English team lost its nerves as an astonishing assault by all rounder Kevin O Brien left Strauss and his men gasping for breath.
The English team was shoddy in the field, with Strauss himself dropping a relatively simple catch with Brien on 91.
The burly all rounder notched the fastest hundred in World Cup history reaching the landmark of a mere 50 balls, he hit 13 fours and 6 sixes and was run out at the brink of victory.
However, the damage had been done by then and John Mooney played a steady innings at the end of the game to take his team through to their greatest win in the international career.
Strauss blamed the Poms’ poor fielding for the stunning defeat.
“It was a bit of a shock for us if I'm honest, and bitterly disappointing because we did a lot of things badly in the field again,” said Strauss. “We could have taken our catches. I dropped him and we dropped three other catches as
well, which in the end cost us the game, there's no doubt about it.”
He added that the bowling has left a lot to be desired; the English bowlers struggled to contain runs. Strauss thinks that the bowlers would have to work really hard in the coming games.
“Our bowling could've been better, certainly in the Powerplay,” Strauss added. “I think we got a bit taken by surprise there. And we just can't afford to give away that many chances on these sorts of wickets. It's very hard to get
people out on very flat wickets, and if you're dropping four of them then you're asking for trouble.”
The English team that won the T20 World Championship in the http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760 last May has suffered big time due to the inability of its bowlers to stem the flow of runs towards the end of the innings. Only a disciplined approach with real
determination can put them back on track in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750.
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