And now for the cricket team

Well fresh from the England rugby rolling over and laying down for the French, the England cricket team do the same for the Indians. They now have to win the last test just to tie the series. This is a very poor performance considering the amount of time lost to bad light and rain, and will not reflect well on the test ranking for England. The measure of a good side is that they can win away from home, and right now England are showing no sign of achieving that anywhere. This means that we can expect the Ashes to return to the Aussies in the autumn.

With the one day side showing no signs of improvement the test side need to start flying the flag again. I know that the selectors will come out with a lot of excuses around a young team, key players missing and all that crap. But the fact is away from home we are struggling, we have yet to get to grips with foreign pitches, with the exception of the West Indies. Maybe it is a good thing that the world cup is there, though given the feast of runs scored by south Africa and Australia yesterday, any hopes of one of them not winning the World Cup are pretty low.

So what do England need to do. Firstly adapt better, even the fast scoring Aussies know its hard to score four and over on the sub continent. What they do is look to build big scores and then bowl out their opponents. In each Indian innings England have made an early breakthrough but have failed to capitalize on it. They need more consistency with the ball and more patience with the bat. Too many of them are getting out in the 50's and 60's when they are required to post centuries. I agree with batting first after winning the toss, but you then have to bat for the best part of two days to ensure that you will not lose. This tour now becomes one of damage limitation, which will not be easy considering the one dayers are up next. Let us all hope for a much improved performance on Friday