England could not even bat out their 20 overs, so overwhelmed were they by the atmosphere and their own ineptitude. Trinidad does parties like nowhere else has done since Bacchus drained his last dregs, and the Queen’s Park Oval was filled to the gunwales with 21,000 swaying inside, at the pitch of excitement which comes only from having people milling outside desperate to get in, writes Scyld Berry in the Telegraph.
Having played some fine cricket as the Test series wore on (and on, it seemed), England reverted to a red-shirted shambles. The captain, Andrew Strauss, did not so much not know what he was doing – this was a trying match for him such was the way his team responded in the field – as not know who he was, wearing the absent Matt Prior's shirt. His kit had been lost in transit apparently, writes Mike Selvey in the Guardian.
Perhaps England's affairs have to become truly appalling before improvement can begin. Perhaps they must hit rock bottom. Perhaps they have. It felt as though they were plumbing those murky depths yesterday in losing the Twenty20 international to West Indies by six wickets, says Stephen Brenkley in the Independent.
Andrew Strauss was pictured with the ICC World Twenty20 trophy on Saturday morning as part of a promotional drive by the governing body, but the England captain will not be lifting the silverware again in the summer unless his side can bring about a marked improvement over the next three months, writes Richard Hobson in the Times.
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