A brilliant start for the new look England side today. Came in from work turned the tele on and saw 400 runs and just assumed we were chasing 400. Got settled and started watch the game and then realised England were bowling and had scored 400 plus!!!!
Then a few minutes later Adil Rashid is standing at the top of his mark ready to start his spell and what a spell it turns out to be! With the protection of so many runs Rashid was able to settle and looked as though he was completely relaxed and able to go about his work. Later in the interview he acknowledge this saying "I was able to play with a positive mind set and just work on spinning the ball hard". He started with an off-spinner finger spin delivery - stump to stump, but then moved straight on to his leg-breaks. Initially they didn't look that spun hard and it took a couple of overs to settle, but then once he'd taken his first wicket - Kane Williamson caught deep mid - off (Joe Root), he settled and started to bowl really well. His next wicket was Santner caught in the slips by Chris Jordan. 3rd wicket was Henry bowled with Googly and trapped LBW see field below.
This was to Matt Henry who was bowled with a Googly trapped LBW
The classic one was Luke Ronchi who caused England all sorts of problems in the test series batting like a one day batsman. He came out and Rashid hadn't used the Googly for a while, but you just knew Ronchi would give it the biggun, he just had that aura about him that kind of suggested he would smash Rashid back into the England Lions and Yorkshire. I guessed he'd come out and be aggressive right from the outset and sure enough he did, but Adil was one step ahead of him and bowled him clean with a Googly.
The fields for Rashid were interesting...
The commentators mentioned the fact that his Wrong-Un turns more than his leggie. When asked about his variations and at what point he deploys them, he said that it wasn't a case of 'Showing the batsman' the Googly early, it was just a case of bringing it out when needed, but he said you have to be confident that you're going to be able to pull it off, because you need to be seen to be an attacking option and stay on top of the batsman.
It's going to be interesting to see how he goes in the rest of these matches as McCullum is no doubt going to come out hard and I'm pretty certain that like Luke Ronchi had intended to do, they wont want Rashid to be a key part of the England set up, as the more he bowls and the more frequently he's used effectively and he comes away with wickets, the more his confidence will grow. I'm pretty sure New Zealand will target him. It'll be interesting to see how he's used when he hasn't got that same buffer in terms of runs on the board, will he be used in the same way and will he bowl with such confidence?
Statistically he's done well in this game at 5.5 an over and having taken four wickets. Everyone is saying that this is his time, he's 6 years older he made a massive contribution with the bat with the highest number 7 partnership in all one day cricket history at this level. He's also come away with the best Leg-spin figures for an English man in one day history too. Let's hope this is Adils moment and he gets his chance to cement a place in this side for the next 10 years or so.
