As a supporter of Everton Football Club and the England cricket team, I have a rather interesting perspective on the views of an upset today.
After watching Everton fail to turn up and crash to a 1-0 home defeat by Reading on Tuesday night (this after beating Chelsea in the previous round!), I then proceeded to watch England rack up 328 in 50 overs against Ireland. The Irish then slipped to 111 for 5 and I thought I could finally relax, calm in the knowledge that England would comfortably wrap up the game and move on to the next game against South Africa with the 2 points in the bag. However, a fantastic innings by Kevin O’Brien, ably supported by Mooney and Cusack lead Ireland to one of the most remarkable wins in one-day cricket history.
Sporting upsets happen everywhere, but the delight of them is that they are not that common – if the minnow regularly won, then there would be no novelty, and no thrill or excitement, in most cases the ‘weaker’ side are duly despatched without any trouble – as has been shown on a number of occasions during the world cup so far. The thing about Irelands victory, is that you could replay that match 100 times, and England would probably win 95 of them. As remarkable as Kevin O’Brien’s innings was, and it was a very talented performance - not just wild slogs, the fact is that if he tried to repeat it 50 times, it would be successful on only a handful of them. It is things like this that make it such a remarkable feat, and sometimes as the giant that has been defeated you have to put your hands up and say ‘that’s just the way it goes some days’.
For the next few days there will be endless pages written on why England lost, and what England should have done better. There will also no doubt be lots of outraged supporters proclaiming England’s poorness at being able to finish off a’ weaker’ side.
For what it’s worth, my opinion having watched 2 games at Bangalore, is that you bat second whoever you are playing, as the nature of the pitch, the ground and the altitude mean that it is possible to score almost any total. As such, it is impossible to bat first and know what a good score is, both India and England thought they had more than enough in their innings and both ended up 20 or 30 short than they could have made. The pitch offers nothing to the bowlers, meaning it is almost impossible to limit the scoring rate unless batsmen lose their heads.
However, having watched & played sport for many years, sometimes you just have to accept that it wasn’t your day and the sporting gods had other plans for that game.
