ODI preview / Ed Hawkins / 28 March 2009 / Leave a comment

Ed Hawkins talks us through England's embarassing defeat in the 3rd ODI and doubts that England have the mental and physical energy to bounce back.

Andrew Strauss has not got much right on his first tour as England captain. But he at least hit the mark in the wake of England's disastrous defeat to West Indies in Bridgetown on Friday. It was, he said: "pretty humiliating and fundamentally pretty embarrassing".

Strauss' side were bowled out for a pathetic 117 and then West Indies smashed their bowlers all round the park to win by eight wickets with 176 balls to spare.
The beleaguered leader could have added words like "chastening" and "demoralising" because that is how his players will be feeling this morning, just a day before they have to go back to Bridgetown. Gosh they will pack those bags on the bus with trepidation, fearing another bludgeoning by the bat of Chris Gayle, whose 80 from 43 balls must make him top-bat value .

Punters who backed England for the third one-day international will probably not go back ... for a very long time. West Indies, one up with two to play, are as short as [1.33] for the series with England [4.30]. For game four, the hosts shrink to clear favouritism for the first time in the series at [1.78]. England are [2.20].

One could argue that price is nowhere near big enough about an England team who have just been bowled out for their 15th lowest total in one-day internationals.

But then again, there are always believers. One of them is my flatmate, who reckoned "it would be typical of England to come back with a really strong performance and win."

It is blue sky thinking for sure but the rationale is fair enough. A team so shamed will feel a sense of personal and national pride swell in their bellies and they will bust a gut to put in some sort of performance.

The reality is that England have been putting in such shoddy performances for too long now to believe they will come back hard. Of their 50 lowest one-day totals, with the 158 against New Zealand in Hamilton propping up the rest, 21 have come since 2000 and eight in the last two years.

Bear in mind that England have being playing 50-over cricket since 1971 (although the number of matches per year have hugely increased) and what you have is crystal clear proof that England are a unit who cannot be trusted. Particularly away from home with 18 of those 21 embarrassments coming on the road.

So what chance of England roaring like the wounded Three Lions that they are at the Kensington Oval on Sunday?

Not good. Of those 21 defeats, three have come in the last contest of a series so there is no point looking at the result of England's next match, which in some cases would have been months away. The rest, however, had matches immediately afterwards. From those 18, England lost 14. That is a win percentage rate of 22 per cent and a solid guide as to how they will fare on Sunday.

The only glimmer of hope for the tourists is that in 2007 in the Commonwealth Bank Series, England three times notched lowest totals, three times lost the very next game but still managed to pick themselves up to get their hands on the trophy.

That was an incredible turnaround and one which surely cannot be repeated. England look tired on the field and the only energy they show is off it in the form of Kevin Pietersen's whingeing in the press.

Pietersen's bitching is perhaps just one sentence in a war of words in an England dressing room which seems intent on scribbling out its chances of a place in history in an Ashes year.
They are in a terrible state. So last word to Strauss. "If people have pride in their performances, which I am absolutely certain they do, I'm very certain that they'll come back and play a lot better on Sunday."