The international cricket season came to a damp and dreary end at Cardiff on Wednesday evening when the rain probably came to the aid of a weary South Africa team, just as England were ready to complete a 5-0 whitewash in the One Day International Series. England's One Day cricket had been absolutely superb over the last couple of weeks with the opposition leading the accolades for the England team.
Their cricket has been full of authority, enthusiasm and an aggression with both bat and ball that we have rarely seen. The management's best stroke was to entice an in-form Steve Harmison back into the one day fold, this has enabled captain Pietersen to have his two fastest bowlers, Harmison and Flintoff to come on first and second change after the new ball bowlers have made early inroads. That means there is no respite for the opposition batsmen, in actual fact it is like facing a full Test match barrage.
The fielding has clearly been worked upon within England, taking some excellent catches and also managing more run outs than usual, if you put all this together it creates a very offensive fielding unit. As for the batting, both Bell and Prior played their roles very well and enabled England to get off to some very good starts. This then leaves the middle order to play freely and with runs already on the board, the pressure is off a bit. With Pietersen at four and Flintoff at five, we have as much fire power in the middle as any team in the world.
It has been great to see Fred recover his form with the bat over the last three or four weeks, I got the feeling this is just the beginning again. Then beneath them we have a very solid middle order of Collingwood and Patel, who performed admirably with both bat and ball when called up in his first Series and under used Luke Wright chomping at the bit behind him. Stuart Broad, who is most definitely an international class all rounder, must be wondering if he is ever going to get a bat.
Whether England have stumbled upon, or through good planning have found both the right mix of players and also the right place for them all to bat, it looks an intimidating unit. Now that they are all playing well we look forward to their next cricket match that everybody is jostling to be in - the million dollar a man game in Antigua on 1st November. Who would be a selector!?