UFO Info Week-End

What we have to try to do is restrict their batting which means having

What we have to try to do is restrict their batting, which means having a long hard think over the type of surface that will give us the best chance.”We’ve still got work to do and I want everyone to know they’ve got competition from the A team and the Under-19s for their places. We haven’t got a Warne, a Lara or an Akram, so it is important that everyone is aware of the team effort We can’t afford to have anyone under-achieving.”. These are strange hours on tour There are important games left, a one-day series to be won But equally we are only days away from going home. It is natural for our thoughts to turn there, to family and friends whom we have not seen since November

It has been easier for some than others Maybe it depends on the state of your life. Those with young families and new additions to that family like Graham Thorpe and Jack Russell must sometimes find it hard. This is not a lament, merely an observation on the peculiar circumstances of a long cricket tour.
But they don’t alter the fact that we are a team, a unit here to do a job representing our country. Not a day’s play goes by when we don’t realise how fortunate we are to be doing what we do.

It is and should be a source of pride.There have been well- documented disappointments on this tour England have won two Test matches We know it ought to have been four. But it has turned out well in the past fortnight – a good time with the end in sight – and that surely is a tribute to the team spirit. When things were refusing to go our way in Zimbabwe we were downhearted but never resigned We have stuck together. We found fresh legs in New Zealand.A large part of the credit has to go to the captain, Mike Atherton. Struggling for form on the first leg, he came through the darkness into the light, and.

throughout he kept his head up.All this, of course, has coincided with a period of pretty indifferent form for me I know I’m not in form Look at the figures. The team is always the important thing but it’s human for the individual to want do well himself. Without wishing to sound immodest I know I’m important in the field but that without accompanying runs isn’t enough. Earlier in the winter a couple of other batsmen were out of form They fought their way back.

Each time you go to the crease you put past failures behind you. This, you think, is a new start.The end of the tour is a new start in its way too. The series of one- day internationals which started on Wednesday could hardly be more different from the Test matches. This is not only the shortened form of the game, it’s the occasion We have never seen anything like it in England. At times in the opening day-night match it was easier to imagine that you were at a rock concert than a cricket match.But it’s all extremely exciting, the crowd are perpetually involved.