New Zealand v. England 2008
Test Match Betting
England took the Third Test to win the Series
The England cricket team, coming from a mediocre performance in Sri Lanka at the end of last year and less than impressive Twenty/20 and One Day performances in New Zealand in the build-up to this Test Series, have just been abjectly and comprehensively thrashed by a home team which displayed a complete readiness to take England on and perform the sort of first class test cricket that Vaughn?s merry men can only dream of. England did not lose the first of the test series in Hamilton, New Zealand went out there and won it, and sports betting fans take note, they won it in a major way.
England?s Road To Glory
England?s Matthew Hoggard and Stephen Harmison both put on lamentable bowling displays and appeared to be far from match ready. Bell was the only batsman who put on any kind of a show and it?s a revelation that it was his partnership of 34 with bowler, Monty Panesar that was the higher of the second innings. Vaughn described the England batting performance as unacceptable but, to lose nine wickets for seventy seven runs was not just unacceptable, it was rubbish - as I?m sure most online betting fans would agree. Panesar?s achievement of hanging in there for forty five minutes was testament to that.
So to ask the time-old English cliché question, where do we go from here? Well, we have a Captain, Michael Vaughn and we have Peter Moores, the England coach and there are no other people to look to in order to get us out of this mess. Moores is under great scrutiny right now and, while he should be, he wasn?t there in 2005 when England took the Ashes and, having only been in the job for ten months, he is still finding his feet and dealing with the legacy provided by his predecessor.
Blaming coaches is not the answer. We have to look to the players to try to grasp what is going on. This team has been called upon to pull off a recovery before and has delivered the goods - we only have to look at the One Day Series to see that. But they then take their eye off the ball, literally, and throw away the surprise advantage they just gave themselves. There seems to be something affecting their resolve to put the team first and do all they have to do to win for their side.
Certainly men like Harmison must be looked at. He is clearly playing below his form and should be replaced by Stuart Broad for the next match. Vaughn must cast a canny eye over others in the team and root out any who are less than fully committed. He has two days to sort out the mess or he too will be next in line to come under scrutiny. But as all devotees of sports betting know in their heart of hearts, no one really knows what the answer is and, unfortunately, there?s no two ways about that.