Hard task to stop party falling flat

David Lloyd13 April 2012

The NatWest Series is billed as England's early summer party. But with two of the classiest sides in one-day cricket invited this year they will do well to be still standing come the final singsong at Lord's on 23 June. Winning the trophy last season was relatively straightforward once England put their act together.

West Indies soon fell by the wayside and the only real disappointment during a low-key final against Zimbabwe came when Alec Stewart narrowly failed to contribute a third consecutive century to the team's six-wicket win.

This summer, though, Australia and Pakistan - World Cup winners and runners-up respectively on English soil in 1999 - will be favourites to qualify for another Lord's showdown and in turn leave their hosts with nothing more than crumbs.

Both sets of visitors are beatable and, indeed, were beaten in this country two years ago.

But they possess the flair, flexibility and all-round strength England's selectors are still striving to find when it comes to limited-overs cricket.

That search is about to be stepped up. Two main lessons were learned in Pakistan and Sri Lanka last winter as England lost five of their six one-day internationals.

Firstly, that middle-order batsmen need to be innovative enough to keep the scoreboard ticking over in the crucial mid-innings overs. Secondly, that bowlers who neither bat nor field to any great degree struggle to justify their places. England have 18 months to find the right squad to put up a fight in South Africa when the World Cup is next staged.

They may be on the right lines already. Certainly, Alistair Brown deserves his opportunity to bat in the middle order after several seasons of consistently heavy scoring for Surrey.

And young all-rounders Ben Hollioake and Paul Collingwood are brave choices for an area of the squad currently missing Craig White, through a back injury.

Neither Hollioake nor Collingwood have domestic records to shout about. Indeed, Hollioake's for Surrey over the past couple of years is well worth trying to forget. But the selectors believe in them, for the time being at least, and now the ball is in their court.

That was the situation with Marcus Trescothick a year ago.

Selected for the NatWest Series only because of injuries to Nasser Hussain and Nick Knight, the Somerset left-hander made such a good impression England immediately plunged him into Test cricket.

The rest of the Trescothick story is something of a fairytale - and one which ought to fill Brown, Collingwood and Hollioake with optimism.

England begin their defence of the trophy at Edgbaston tomorrow with a day-night match against Pakistan.

The ground in Birmingham will be illuminated by eight banks of floodlights after complaints from players last year that six pylons were insufficient.

Despite Australia's six-wicket defeat during yesterday's warm-up meeting with Middlesex, it is reasonable to assume the hosts will need to beat Waqar Younis's side two times out of three to have any real hope of qualifying for the final.

Whether or not England achieve their target, it is vital they make progress in terms of improved performances.

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