England bemoan lack of big-hitters

Paul Collingwood admitted that England will have to look at their batting line-up for future Twenty20 matches, after seeing his side dumped out of the ICC World Twenty20 tournament at the Super 8 stage by West Indies.


Collingwood and the home fans were left cursing the English weather, as two rain storms left the Windies facing just nine overs and Chris Gayle’s men reached the revised target of 80 to make the semi-finals.


Although England’s performances have been much improved on displays in the same event two years ago, when they won just one of their five matches, there is still a lot more to do before they can think about challenging for the trophy.


In these circumstances people often look for something or someone to blame – this time the finger has to be pointed at the performances with the bat.


Although England surprised many with their win over defending champions India, and also produced a decent display to beat Pakistan in the group stages, their totals often fell well short of what they could and should have been.


England batted first in each of their five matches and their top score (185-5) came against Pakistan, but that was the only time they wracked up over 165 in 20 overs.


The top order batsmen, Ravi Bopara, Luke Wright and Kevin Pietersen, all produced the goods at different stages of the tournament – with top scores of 55, 71 and 58 respectively.


England’s bowlers, especially Graeme Swann and Stuart Broad, can also take some praise for the way they performed.


Again, as has been the problem in other forms of the game in recent times, the middle order has been the downfall and, in particular, the lack of big-hitters at the selectors disposal.


The only big-shot player that England bring in for Twenty20 fixtures is Dimitri Mascarenhas, but he fell short again in this tournament. The Hampshire ace still only has a top score of 31 in 13 international Twenty20 innings.


Mascarenhas was not the only player found wanting though and the selectors will be hoping they have found a middle-order solution by the time the next event is staged in 2010 (brought forward as the 2008 Champions Trophy tournament was postponed) in the West Indies.