Clouds hover over England

By: Tom Mallows

England travel to South Africa with great heart……………..oops sorry wrong sport.

While Fabio Capello’s England football squad will arrive in South Africa next summer confident of making an impact, the same cannot be said of the England cricket team ahead of the Champions trophy in the same country.

The long home summer, stretching from the start of May till end of September, came to a close in the Durham sunshine on Sunday, where England took a crumb of comfort from what was a miserable one-day series. Though even after skittling out the tourists for 176 they nearly contrived to throw it away as once again a middle order collapse gave the Australians the scent of victory. Thankfully Prior and Bresnan finished the job to seal a four wicket win.

With little time to draw breath the squad are on their way to Africa themselves for the Champions Trophy which begins this week.

With issues in the upper order and problems in the bowling attack even the most optimistic of England attack would foresee any other than early elimination. But we also carry with us a foolish optimism that things maybe different, perhaps the win in the North East can inspire the side to a Lazarus style comeback – I’m not holding my breath though.

Elsewhere the hosts South Africa will once again look to shake off their chokers tag, though Graeme Smith’s men clearly have the talent, they maybe hampered by a lack of competitive action since the Twenty/20 World Cup (in June. They begin against Kumar Sangakkara's talented Sri Lankan side. I consider them the two favourites alongside the old enemy Australia, who regained the number one spot during their series with England.

I can’t help but feeling an exciting tournament is needed to breathe new life into the 50 over format. The growth of Twenty/20, the arduous 2007 World Cup and the planned scrapping of the English domestic 50 over game has left many people scratching their heads as to the future of this form of cricket. A few swashbuckling batting performances and some spectacular bowling could inspire new interest in the game.

Sadly, if the past few weeks are anything to go by, that inspiration is not going to come from England.