Over the past few weeks, cricket betting enthusiasts could have been forgiven for thinking that England are rubbish at just about every sport we attempt. We casually threw away two Six Nations rugby matches, gave New Zealand the One day International Series on a plate and then rolled over and died in the first Test Match - all this misery adding to our anguish over the bleak summer ahead because we didn’t qualify for Euro 2008.

And then, all of a sudden, we trash the Irish in the Six Nations and end up second in the table, not just beat but crush New Zealand in the second Test Match in Wellington, have four teams from the Premiership in the final eight of the Champions League and Hamilton wins the first Grand Prix in Melbourne. Blimey – what’s going on?

What’s going on is that England teams and individuals can do it when they decide they want to. There is a learning curve going on out there on this game psychology issue and hopefully they will make that decision more often. If so, sports betting fans have a juicy sporting summer coming up and England will feature very strongly in the winning stakes.

The first opportunity an England team has to show that they can sustain the winning urge is the cricket team in the Third Test Match at Napier beginning this Friday. The team knew they had let themselves and fans down in the first test and they got a grip in the second. Let’s hope they keep it together for the third and we can then come out of New Zealand with pride intact and be ready to take them on when they come to our shores this summer.