Posted: Mon May 29, 2017 4:56 pm
Express & Sport
Blackshore Edition
Dandelion slams Anglish inconsistency
ANGLISH cricket head honcho Richard Dandelion today slammed the inconsistency of his stuttering national side as they slumped to consecutive defeats against Elejamie and Eastfield Lodge. The Hellblazers narrowly missed out on a place in the Super 8; with a final group match defeat against the currently unbeaten and bookies favourites Elejamie. That said, the result was tight; the Anglish batting was still a tad reckless. Dandelion commented: 'A big issue for us throughout this tournament, highlighted quite pertinently in the Elejamie match is that we concede too many wickets for the runs we score. If you consider our bowling and fielding, we've performed fairly well, we haven't been on the end of any huge scores, we've pushed any opposition close to the 20 over limit if not fully there and we've kept the numbers of fours and sixes down. This is a positive and it shows that our methods for bowling and fielding are working fairly well, we just need to tweak the batting technique.
The issue for Dandelion stemmed from the subsequent loss to Eastfield Lodge: 'Firstly, I should state that Eastfield Lodge are a quality side, we were ecstatic upon beating them in the group stages, it really announced our arrival on the international stage. My frustration stems from the lack of consistency, we perform brilliantly well in the initial stages and then crash against the exact same side a matter of days later. From the outset, I've stated that as a maiden tournament we want to see how we match up against the worlds best so we know how to move forward. How can I possibly make such a judgement when we keep producing Jekyll and Hyde performances?'
The view from various press experts differs from that of the Anglish coaching team, the general consensus is that the team performed respectably in the group for a young side and that with this experience and subsequent changes to the Anglish cricketing system, are ideally placed to push on in future tournaments and more crucially gain a world ranking. The loss to Eastfield Lodge was a disappointment but feels more prominent because of the earlier win.
Looking forward, Grand Angland now has a final elimination, must-win match against Lisander. The best we can hope for is to progress through the losers bracket to get through the plate final. It will be tough but there will be a fight and it needs to happen. Plus, with every match comes experience, tactical nous and confidence.