da poker： The crusade marches on with our third championship win of the season,convincingly beating Warwickshire by 150 runs
da bet vitoria： Stephen Fleming28-Jun-2001The crusade marches on with our third championship win of the season,convincingly beating Warwickshire by 150 runs.Warwickshire were in secondplace with a game in hand so it was vital we left Birmingham with maximumpoints.Warwickshire was the county that Roger Twose played for and had successwinning several trophies, particularly in the One-Day leagues. It was alsowhere Roger introduced himself to Brian Lara, their overseas pro at thetime, by hanging a sign on Brian’s locker welcoming the second best left-handerto the county. The best left hander was obviously himself.I had personal success this game aggregating 159 runs for the match. Nocentury, being caught on the boundary from a top edge sweep shot for 92.Disappointing, but nice to be back in the runs after a lean couple of weeks.Unfortunately, the team’s form in the four-dayers hasn’t been matched in the One-Day competition. On Wednesday we lost our third game on the bounce and may nowstruggle to get promotion come the end of the year.My one day league woes continued, so far I’ve only flirted with doublefigures averaging 10 from my three games. Yesterday I had more problems,dislocating my little finger when fielding on the boundary. It’s prettyunnerving when you see one of your digits pointing 90 degrees the wrong way!X-rays this morning show no break which is of great relief as there aresome important matches coming up, including the One-Day series in Sri Lanka.A lot of ice and a bit of luck should see me fit for Friday which is ournext championship match.With England’s poor performance in the recent triangular tournament, therehas been a lot of comment made in the papers over the last few daysconcerned with the future of One-Day cricket in this country.I have a theory on the English One-Day game, and it is not having a crack attheir players – I’ll leave that to the tabloids, but more a moan about thequality of pitches that are served up for Sunday league (45 overs) cricket.In the championship, pitches must be of the highest quality otherwisecounties are fined and points are deducted. There is a panel of turfexperts that travel the country inspecting each wicket before it’s played on.This is a good system allowing positive conditions and stopping teamsdoctoring wickets to suit their side.They have nothing like this in place for One-Day wickets, in fact, it worksthe other way and teams can get away with murder. So far this year wehaven’t played a 45-over match on a fresh pitch.All the wickets have beenused for previous games so, in most cases, you are playing on wickets that areinto their fifth day.Now you think in a test match, batting last on a worn wicket is never easy,try scoring five an over on it!What happens on pitches like these is thatmediocre bowlers who don’t usually bowl, all of a sudden become worldbeaters. The slower you bowl, and the more accurate you are, the better.These bowlers that are having success week in week out now get looked at forhigher honors, but everyone knows that once on a good wicket againstinternational batters, it will be a different story.The other problem forthe selectors is finding batters who are consistent in these conditions.There aren’t many, so the One-Day side seems to be selected fromperformances in the championship.If you play on a better standard of wicket you will get a clear idea of whatplayers can do. It gives players confidence and is a far better spectacle.
