England will face another examination against spin in their first World
Twenty20 Super Eights tie against West Indies in Pallakele on Thursday.
Destroyed by India's Harbhajan Singh and Piyush Chawla at the group
stage, they must now combat West Indies' Sunil Narine and a potential
unknown accomplice, Samuel Badree.
Narine is West Indies' "trump card" according to their captain, Darren Sammy,
but perhaps it is possible to exaggerate the likely extent of the
ordeal after England's batting horrors against India. The most danger to
England is more likely to emanate from the usual place: West Indies'
long list of destructive batsmen.
Narine had a bowling average of 199 in England last summer in all
competitions - his only wicket came when he dismissed Jonathan Trott in
an ODI at the Rose Bowl and Trott is not even here. After his success in
the IPL, England played Narine rather well. If he is to prove a trump
card, it will have needed a change of suit since the sides last met.
As for Badree, he is a 31-year-old legspinner from Trinidad whose
international exposure amounts to two T20I matches against New Zealand
in the United States. He claimed Tim Southee as his only wicket and is
the only international player who can fairly claim to be bigger in
Florida than the rest of the cricketing world. There again, he is an
unknown quantity and, in England's current state, that is a good thing
to be.
It is not that the Pallakele pitch is expected to favour the spinners,
not this early in the tournament anyway, just that West Indies have
unsurprisingly taken a view. It was hard not to after the way England
capitulated to India, bowled out for 80, their lowest Twenty20 score.
But even if you add in the offspin of Chris Gayle and Marlon Samuels,
who are both most notable for the expenditure of a minimal number of
calories in delivery, England will be telling themselves that their
fallibility against spin is in danger of being overplayed.
England's T20I captain, Stuart Broad,
is doing his best to shrug it off. "We are ready for that," he said.
"It is not as if we have found out yesterday that people are going to
bowl spin at us. Coming to Sri Lanka, we sort of knew that because those
are the conditions we will face. It is important as individuals we try
to counteract it."
Broad refuses to accept that England have technical issues against spin
bowling. Even if he harbours doubts, it is far too late to do much about
it now. The only option is to try to restore self-belief and trust that
England somehow brazen it through
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