I am writing this the morning after England have been embarrassed by South Africa in the first game of the Super Eight stage of the 20/20 World Cup.  Having had a great end to the summer of the One Day Series against India, we seem to have slipped back in to a one day melee, as much through bad options with team selection as with our skills on the field. 

You only had to look at the two teams last night to see there were two completely different decisions of how the pitch was going to play.  There had been enough cricket played under the lights at Cape Town now to know the pitch offers pace and bounce and lateral movement for the quicker bowlers.  South Africa played a battery of quick bowlers and England selected two spinners.  Granted, if our fielding had been up to the mark, South Africa would not have scored the runs that they did, but at some stage their batsmen were going to get hold of an over of spin and unfortunately for Chris Schofield, who had bowled well till then, it was him.

Then on the batting side, I feel sorry this morning for young Luke Wright who had made a swash buckling international debut at The Oval where he came in the middle order and played his natural game.  He has been asked to come in at the top of the innings on wickets that have been doing a bit with the new ball and to my way of thinking has been asked far too much.  Then just to finish things off, letting Jeremy Snape come in ahead of Dimitri Mascarenhas who at least has been batting and finding the boundary, whilst Snape’s only cricket for sometime has been practising in the nets.  With 12 an over needed, Andrew Flintoff needed somebody at the other end that could hit a boundary, surely this sort of thinking is not rocket science.

Let’s hope our decision making is better tomorrow morning when we have a make or break game against New Zealand.