England coach Andy Flower expects Kevin Pietersen to perform as an opener in the ICC World Cup 2011
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/England-c749 coach Andy Flower is hoping that promoting Kevin Pietersen to the opening slot will work help the batsman in regaining his hard hitting reputation. According to the news coming from the English camp, KP will be joining skipper Andrew Strauss as his
opening partner in England’s first match of the 2011 World Cup against Netherlands on the 22nd of this month.
Talking about KP’s new role as an opener, Flower said, “It would be a nice result if he's re-invigorated by the challenge ahead of him. It's a serious challenge because opening the batting in this form of the game in the sub-continent carries a lot of responsibility.”
Flower was aware of the fact that it was going to be vital for the teams to have a stable opening partnership on the wickets in the subcontinent.
He expressed full trust in the abilities of his ace batsman Pietersen to come up with a commendable performance for his national team by opening the innings.
“He's good enough, without doubt, to take on that responsibility and thrive and I'm looking forward to watching how he accepts the challenge,” said Flower.
Pietersen has been labelled as the hardest hitting batsman for England but of late the prolific batsman has not been showing his explosive batting form. During the recent tour of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 he managed to score just one fifty in six innings.
Promoting Pietersen is a good gamble that just might work for England and if KP gets going in his new role, he may as well unleash h**l on the opposition with some massive clobbering.
He has been impotent in the middle order in the recent past and it is high time to try making use of this all-rounder in some new role. Pietersen has played as an opener in the past for England A, where he scored 131 runs in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750 in the year 2004.
It is highly anticipated that the teams who score quick at an early stage of the game are most likely going to end up putting a huge total on the board in this World Cup. This has been proved after the first match of the ICC World Cup 2011 between hosts
India and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Bangladesh-c747, where the Indians while batting first posted a mammoth total of 370 runs, in reply the minnows Bangladesh ended up scoring a respectable total of 283 runs.
If anything is evident from this match is the fact that the wickets in the subcontinent are most likely going to suit the batsmen and this World Cup is going to be a high scoring event.
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