Same old, same old

New Zealand beat England 3-1 in the ODI series and it must be said thoroughly deserved to win. New Zealand does not have a team full of star players; Vettori is an excellent spinner and Oram is quite good on his day. So how does a team of good county players beat a world class England team? The obvious answer is because they are better. New Zealand work well as a team and have players that, although not world class, can regularly produce good performances. England do not.

The England line up is desperately short of fire power in the upper and middle order. The one stand-out player – Keven Pietersen has been in a long decline. The bowling attack, with the exception of Sidebottom looks poor. Anderson has series figures of 37 1 270 4, that is a run-rate of 7.3 per over and a wicket every 68 runs. I am not sure if Anderson’s selection can be justified in future. Broad at least has better figures: 38 3 206 8 … and he topped the batting averages.