Cricket World Cup

England captain says women’s game would get a huge boost from extra exposure

Evening Standard

Prized asset: Charlotte Edwards was named Women’s Cricketer of the Year. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

For all the success Charlotte Edwards has had as captain of the England women’s cricket team, she will feel wretched as she watches the London Olympics.

“I would be lying if I said I’m not gutted that I’m not involved in the Olympics. In years to come, Twenty20 cricket will be in the Olympics. But, by then, I won’t be involved. I just have to accept that I will have missed the home Olympics. Cricket at the Olympics would have raised the profile of women’s cricket in this country.”

The lack of profile is despite Edwards leading one of the country’s most successful sporting teams. England are holders of the 50-over World Cup, they won the Twenty20 World Cup in 2009 and go into the first match of the NatWest T20 series against India at Canterbury today on a winning streak of 14 matches.

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Outlook – Opinion

A wealthy Board, wealthy players, but a poverty of strategy and ambition—and a ‘cool’ captain who’s clueless

Indian cricket is in the classic position of the rich man who finds that money does not bring success, let alone happiness. To anyone brought up on Bollywood films, that is hardly a surprising script, but it’s the grim reality that stares Indian cricket in the face. What makes it worse is its predictability. The easy thing would be to fault the IPL. It is more than that. The sad situation is the result of years of mismanagement and any lack of strategic thinking. This is a problem that goes beyond cricket to what may be called the national psyche.

I was made aware of this back in 2002. India had just won a Test in Trinidad—the first Test they had won in the West Indies since that epic victory, also at Trinidad, back in 1976. After the victory, captain Sourav Ganguly kissed the turf of the Queen’s Park Oval; I felt it epitomised the new India. Yet the next Test in Barbados saw Ganguly run out Rahul Dravid and an abysmal batting collapse. Far from looking like victors, Indians looked a deflated team waiting to go home. A perceptive critic defined it as the poverty of ambition. India had won one Test in the Caribbean; what more was required? Indian cricket has always suffered from this syndrome.

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Evening Standard

In charge: Andrew Strauss says there is no need to bark out the orders these days. Image courtesy of Evening Standard

Animals have occupied more time than cricket for Andrew Strauss recently as he enjoys a well-earned – and rare – break from the sport with his family at his farm near Marlow.

England’s Test captain has acquired a dog to complement the sheep given to him by Alastair Cook’s girlfriend. But, in the six weeks since leading England to No1 in the Test rankings, he has thought long and hard about what the team must do to remain the top dogs of cricket. In the process, the 34-year-old has also banished thoughts of retirement which he had entertained at the beginning of the season.

The success of the summer still seems astonishing: India arrived as World Cup holders and the No 1 Test team but left after failing to win a single international. Despite this, Strauss emphasises that England are far from the finished product and he dismisses the idea his side are the new Australia.

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FT

Sport and business may often be uncomfortable bedfellows. The recent problems at Fifa, the world football’s governing body, have demonstrated how difficult it is for sport to be run as a business. However, the cricket Test series between England and India demonstrates that sport can provide instructive lessons about how to use money to maximise resources and produce a winning formula.

This series saw England not only become the top Test nation in the world but also humiliate India, winning all four matches. Not even the most optimistic of English fans could have hoped for such a result. Bookmakers, who always have a shrewd idea about such things, were so convinced this was unlikely that, at the beginning of the series, they were offering odds of 25-1 against such an outcome.

The English triumph, and more so the scale of the victory, is remarkable given that India has been the number one Test country since 2009. Only three months previously, India also won the 50-over World Cup, something England has never achieved. The triumph is all the more remarkable because, as has been well-documented, India is the money bags of world cricket.

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ECB Cricket Podcast – Episode 56

England take top spot in the world Test rankings after victory over India at Edgbaston – latest from the npower Test Series with both captains, plus Alastair Cook, Tim Bresnan, Graeme Swann, Hugh Morris, Mihir Bose and Podcast Pundit Mike Gatting.

Mihir and Stephen Lamb discuss India’s loss against England in the Series.

(Note: the relevent section starts at 20:00)

Click here to listen or download the podcast in full