The decline of English sport

England’s performances in recent sporting encounters have been nothing short of pitiful. In Rugby, where England are well-deserved World Champions, they finished a lowly 4th in the RBS Six Nations. Whilst France won the competition, in my mind, the team of the series was Scotland, having demonstrated an incredible improvement in their game, and well deserved their 3rd place. Ireland were fortunate to scrape to 2nd.

It remains though that England were shocking. After a promising thrashing of Wales, they slumped to defeats at the hands of Scotland, France and Ireland. That’s 3 losses in 3 against Ireland. Andy Robinson is promising a shakeup of the England team camp management and coaches, but I wager that he ought to be the one to go. He doesn’t have the presence that Woodward had, and probably doesn’t even have the tactical nouse. What was obvious in every England performance was that Matt Dawson is a better scrum half than Harry Ellis, yet Dawson didn’t start a game (I think). At best he was given a half to play and make an impact. Which invariably he did. The argument being that Ellis the new guy, and they’re breaking him in for when Dawson is no longer playing, but… it seems ridiculous when Dawson is playing well.

I can’t remember the last time I thought something about the state of English football. Frankly, I couldn’t care less. But for an all-Dutch final in the darts was frightening. England representatives had a nightmare at the Winter olympics, especially in the curling which ought to have been a shoe-in… nothing. Scotland even defeated us in the cycling at the Commonwealth games.

And to cricket. In the third and final test match of the India series, a match which England must win to draw the series, it seems any upsets (both mentally and physically) and have been set aside as England dominate on day 3. Posting a total of 400 would have been disappointing for the side, but to see Strauss score a hundred is a welcome change, and Flintoff appears to have taken the role as captain in his stride as he posted another half century. James Anderson has not baulked his chance of a permanent comeback as he played a crucial role in a dismal 279 all out by India in their first innings. So it’s all positive, it’s all good, isn’t it?

No. Because in England’s reply first-innings centurian Strauss was out for 4 and Ian Bell failed yet again, scoring just 26 runs in the whole match. His 9 and 1 in the first test was equally poor, and whilst managing scores of 38 and 57 in the second match, the match was eventually lost and so arguably worthless. For a number 2 batsman to score 131 runs in 6 innings is not good enough – they should be averaging above 30.. not 21.

It remains to be seen whether we can post a quick 200 runs and bowl India out in the final 2 days.