New Zealand V England 3rd One Dayer 15th Feb 2008

Morale boosting seems to be the BBC headlines as England finally get off the mark in the 50 over series with Collingwood, Pieterson and Bell amongst the runs and an excellent concerted bowling performance from all the English bowlers.
England now need to move on from this, on paper they have the better individuals but the Kiwis are no mugs and In Vettori have a very capable and canny cricketer, I think the rest of their team is made up of bits and pieces players who on their day can be unbeatable, Scott Styris is also a very underrated player who can turn a game with his batting and bowling.
England now need to focus for the last two games and victory is not an impossibility.

New Zealand v England 2nd One Dayer 12th Feb 2008

Here we go again, another torrid England batting display and England’s 4th 10 wicket defeat in one dayers. Once again England’s middle orders were found wanting, all England’s batsmen without exception need a few runs under their belt. Boparas initial burst onto the cricketing scene seems to have fallen well and truly flat now whereas Pieterson really needs a big total to remind people of how good he is. Mustard is surely not an international opener. 3 dropped catches in the field scuppered any hope England had of salvaging anything from this game. Move on now, can things get any worse.

New Zealand v England 1st One dayer 9th Feb 2008

Whew, what just happened there, England were literally insipid in their batting performance and seemed totally bamboozled by the slow pitch.
No excuses for this display, the bowlers bowled ok but had absolutely nothing to bowl at.
Let’s mark this one down as a bad day at the office and move on.

New Zealand V England 2nd 20/20 7th February 2008

Another comfortable victory for England, this time by 50 runs, an inexperienced New Zealand side were never in the hunt really although Collingwood and Shah had to inject some class into the proceeding after a mini collapse. England’s bowling was once again first rate and hopefully bodes well for the rest of the tour.

New Zealand V England 1st 20/20 Feb 5th 2008

Auckland hosted the first 20/20 match of the New Zealand tour and England emerged comfortable winners.

Put into bat against a fairly in-experienced Kiwi eleven, England made a respectable 184 for 8, Kevin Pieterson looking every inch the quality player he is (he could do with a good tour though),

Dimitri Mascarenhas, proved his worth once again as a very good one day player both with the bat and the ball, in fact England never looked like losing and bowled very well.

I still think there is the nucleous of a very good one day side here and England are carrying few passengers (which has not always been the case).