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Be bold, not brave

"Courage, mes enfants" the anxious general said on the eve of war, before casting comment on the way his troops had been performing in training. "C'est magnifique, mais ce n'est pas le Vingt20 du monde."

Courage, or rather bravery, is what Captain Collingwood thinks England need to win the World Twenty20.

“We have to be brave,” Collingwood said at his press conference yesterday. “I want everybody to see this as a major opportunity." Anyone who needed to be told that should surely not be in the squad.

Mind you, no one should doubt Collingwood's bravery, as this picture shows. Having a net wearing only shorts and a rather loosely fitted thigh pad? Surely that flesh was a tempting target for the England bowlers.

Daunting though the prospect is of facing Dangerous Dirk Nannes, the man who kept Glenn McGrath sitting on the Delhi bench throughout the IPL, or countering the all-round brilliance of Ryan Ten Doescate (Mike Atherton scoffed when I ventured to him that Doeschate was world-class...), I don't think England need to be brave to beat the Dutch on Friday. Just being good should do it.

"Be brave" is what people say to those who are on the verge of wetting themselves with fear. A child is told to be brave when visiting the dentist. A spurned lover bravely stiffens his lip and tries to stop blubbing. We lack real dragons, so we summon up bravery for pretty mundane events, such as taking an exam or walking home in the dark or facing the Netherlands at cricket.

Maybe Collingwood was thinking of that adage "fortune favours the brave". If so, his Latin is ropey. The Roman playwright Terence coined the phrase "fortes fortuna adiuvat", which Virgin twisted a bit in The Aeneid to "audentis fortuna adiuvat", but neither promotes bravery. The first means "fortune favours the strong", the latter "... the bold". Strength and boldness are what England require, not bravery.

Afghans sneak through

Afghanistan lost their third game in a row at the final World Cup qualifying tournament, losing a high-scoring game against the UAE, but they have still qualified for the second Super Eights stage as the seventh ranked side, leaving Bermuda, who were at the last World Cup, Uganda, Oman and Denmark behind. It will be some ask to make it through to the World Cup as one of the top four teams, though. Three wins out of four is probably their requirement, but if they come in the top six they get full ODI status for the next four years, which will help their development.

The other qualifiers for the Super Eights, in rank order, are Ireland, Kenya, Canada, Netherlands, UAE, Scotland and Namibia.

How Alec Stewart fought the Taleban

Will Luke has written a splendid piece for Cricinfo on the hard path that the Afghanistan cricket team have taken to get to within a sniff of qualifying for the next World Cup. Go and read it.

Raees Ahmadzai, a middle order batsman, tells Will that he fell in love with cricket watching highlights of the 1992 World Cup final on a black-and-white TV in the refugee camp in which he grew up, but his hero was not Imran Khan or Wasim Akram or any of Pakistan's cornered tigers. "I heard the name Alec Stewart - and I immediately thought 'Okay - I want to be like Alec Stewart.'," Ahmadzai said. "I couldn't understand or pronounce the other names, but Alec Stewart? That was easy. And cricket started for me there."

Life in the camp was tough. "I led a very, very simple life," Ahmadzai said. "For a long time there was no electricity, computers, phones, facilities or anything. Very hard, very difficult. It was so hot. Sometimes it was nearly 50 degrees [Celsius] and we had no fans or air conditioning. So maybe that's why we are a little bit strong." And Kevin Pietersen thinks he has it tough.

Afghanistan lost their second game in a row today, losing to the Netherlands after being beaten by Kenya on Saturday, but remain in the frame to move on to the Super Eights stage. Beating the UAE in their final game would help the overall quest. Ireland are the only unbeaten side, with four wins from four, but Bermuda, who competed in the 2007 World Cup, are almost out with one win so far.

Here come the girls... soberly

I was at Lord's this morning at a homecoming reception for England's World Cup-winning side, who arrived at Heathrow at 6am. The women were all looking pretty perky after such a long flight from Australia, as was Giles Clarke, the ECB chairman who had flown with them, and was looking radiant in his lemon-coloured socks.

Clarke spoke with optimism about the women's triumph sparking interest in the game among other women. "In 1996 we had 10,000 women and girls playing cricket," he said "We now have a million. You just aren't going to get an outstanding squad of 15 when you pick from 10,000." Asked for a future target he said: "We have 2.5 million men and boys playing cricket so logically we should be aiming for that. I have asked Clare Connor [the head of women's cricket] and Mark Lane [the head coach] to come to our next board meeting and put some ambitious proposals forward."

Dear old Giley then went on to compare the attitudes of the women with the men's team. "There was quite a contrast between the day after the last Ashes Test in 2005 and the day after the World Cup win in Sydney," he said. "The women had to be at the Opera House at 9am in the morning and they all were, all looking bright-eyed. There were no thousand-yard stares." Maybe the men just needed to celebrate more enthusiastically because they were less used to success?"

I thought I almost had a scoop when Clarke said that David Morgan, his predecessor and now the ICC president, was "getting soaked with the girls" in Sydney. Soaked as in sozzled? "Covered in champagne spray he was." Ah, that's probably less of a story.

Hurrah for the women

So were you up for Colvin? At 5.55am this morning the ponytailed teenager wrote her name alongside those of Geoff Hurst and Jonny Wilkinson as someone who had the final word in winning England a World Cup, although while young Holly struck the winning runs and had bowled ten economical overs it was her partner at the other end, Nicki Shaw, who had been man of the match with four wickets. Jenny Roesler, of Cricinfo fame, has written this match report for L&L.

 

The tickertape was still streaming across the pitch long after England women had won their third World Cup, the first under the ICC and the first since the ECB took over their game in 1997. Oh, and did we mention the first ICC world event to be won by an England side men or women, with the men having had plenty of chances to date?

At last the ECB’s conviction in the women, bolstered by Chance to Shine contracts in conjunction with The Cricket Foundation, is paying off. And, perhaps worryingly for other teams, England still could have done even better this tournament. Nobody would pretend this was England’s best performance but in a battle of the nerves – and in front of a TV audience of 230 countries – they triumphed, and deservedly so.

Nicki Shaw was called in at the last minute to replace the injured Jenny Gunn and emerged the four-wicket hero, strangling New Zealand for 166. New Zealand, as ever, made them work hard for their win – even after Sarah Taylor and Caroline Atkins put on nearly half the runs for the first wicket, with 74 - but as England’s team anthem Never Forget blazed out from the stereo, accompanied by their rousing singing, you got the sense that this is only just the beginning for Charlotte Edwards’ side.

With victories in the last two Ashes, they will be well placed to make it three wins this summer. And who knows what they can do when it comes to the World Twenty20 on home soil? They have already proven they can cut it in front of the cameras. It’s a very exciting time and England’s win was important not just for themselves but for the game as a whole. They have proven just what can be done with financial backing and it’s to be hoped that the message can get through to other boards such as that of New Zealand, who have run the women’s game since taking it over with good foresight in 1992.

Though England’s victory may be overshadowed by other news stories, including in cricket itself the shifting of the IPL, here at North Sydney Oval on Sunday the focus was on the England women and the England women only. It wasn’t quite the final that the tournament had deserved but that won’t matter to the team tonight.

It’s been a great privilege to be here and even better to see new fans being converted to the game. I spoke to Wasim Akram earlier (the interview will be on Cricinfo soon) and he had no idea what to expect when he first arrived to cover the game for ESPN Star Sports. Needless to say, he's been impressed (and kept calling the women by their first names, endearingly). But with big-name backers like him, women’s cricket is well-placed as it gradually creeps into the spotlight, one excellent match at a time, and no less than the game deserves.

Women's World Cup final preview

Never mind whether England's winless winter of discontent continues today, we have a team in a World Cup final on Saturday night (11pm start) and even more importantly, Australia do not. It's England v New Zealand and Line and Length is honoured to invite a guest writer to do the preview. Jenny Roesler is a former assistant editor of Cricinfo, who was swept off her feet by an Australian and now lives with him Down Under. Despite such poor judgment, she is very welcome here.

POSTCARD FROM SYDNEY

Dear all,

Wish you were here in sunny Sydney for the Women's World Cup. What has been a fabulous festival fortnight – comparing favourably, let's just say, with the endless 2007 men's version – peaks on Sunday at North Sydney Oval. Charlotte Edwards's England are raring for their third title, against one-time winners New Zealand.

Both teams deserve to be in the final, as they have played the most consistent cricket. Each lost only one match and has batting firepower aplenty, so it is a hard call. But there is a real chance that at last a senior ICC trophy will have England's name on it. So, have a night in on Saturday and beg, borrow or steal a sofa, Sky box and sleeping bag.

Or at least get up early, à la the nation's Sunday morning rugby-final-mania of 2003. You never know, you could just catch the classy Claire Taylor hitting the winning run in calm Jonny Wilkinson fashion. If it's still all too early for you, there are video highlights on the ICC website, while Cricinfo will have provided ball-by-ball coverage (there's the gratuitous plug).

Whichever way you look at it – and I really hope you do – England's long-time dedication could be about to pay off. Here's a cheat sheet of points to drop, casually, into conversation with friends to really impress them.

1) The last time these sides met in a final was at Lord's in 1993 when Jo Chamberlain, a truck driver, starred for England.

2) This is Charlotte Edwards's fourth World Cup, but her first time in the final.

3) England's Claire Taylor is the world's No 1 batsman in the ICC rankings, while pint-sized Isa Guha, her team-mate, is the No 1 bowler.

4) England all-rounder Jenny Gunn has been reported twice for a suspect bowling action in recent weeks - firstly in grade cricket in Sydney, then in the opening match against Sri Lanka. She has since been cleared.

5) New Zealand's captain Haidee Tiffen made her first ODI century in New Zealand's last Super Six game against Pakistan. It was her 116th attempt, and her previous best was 91.

6) Tiffen shared a world-record stand of 262 with Olympic basketballer Suzie Bates who smashed records of her own that match with a breathtakingly brilliant 168.

Yours, Jenny

A Taylor-made opening

Congratulations to England Women, who made a confident start to their World Cup campaign in Australia this morning with a 100-run win in Canberra. Claire Taylor, the top-ranked batsman in the world, scored her eighth international century to help England to 277 for five after being put in. Laura Marsh, the fast-medium bowler, then took three wickets and three more fell to run-outs as Sri Lanka failed to make a challenge.

Tougher tests await for Charlotte Edwards's team, with India in their pool and perennial favourites Australia and New Zealand to be tackled farther down the road, but it is a good start.

Women's rugby also lacks the strength in depth, but you have to win your matches regardless of the opposition and that is what England Women did yesterday in Dubai, where I am covering the Sevens World Cup (hence the lack of posts this week - normal service, including two Ashes Heroes, resumes on Monday). Sue Day's England Women won all three pool matches yesterday without conceding a point, which is pretty darned impressive. That said, New Zealand's defence was also unbroken so it looks as if this is a two-horse competition.

England's men remain on track for victory, too. They play Samoa in the quarter-finals in about an hour and a half, with New Zealand lurking as a possible semi-finals opponent. You can read about England's story so far here and here.

World Cup cut to 14 teams

With its renowned gift for picking the wrong moment, the ICC has just announced that the 2011 World Cup will be reduced to 14 teams from the 16 who competed in the Caribbean last year and it will last for 38 days. While the reduction in duration is welcome, I imagine that representatives of the associate nations, who will now lose two spaces in the tournament, will be astounded by this news, coming as it does on the same day that an Indian wicketkeeper was sold for what I imagine it costs to hire, train and run and international side for a year (Andrew Nixon - do you have figures for what Ireland et al spend?)

Meanwhile, the final of the Duleep Trophy, India's first-class competion, is on TV at the moment and it appears that there are as many people watching it in The Times sports department as there are at the ground itself. The stands at the Wankhede Stadium appear to be as populated as Derby on a cold county championship day.

Cricket: bigger than Paris Hilton

Thanks to Will, I learn that Google has done an analysis of the most popular searches on its website during the past year and, well my gosh, the fourth most popular search in the world was "2007 cricket world cup", behind "American Idol", "youtube" (who on earth needs to Google youtube when they can surely have a guess at youtube.com?) and "Britney Spears".

The 2007 World Cup was more popular, in terms of searches anyway, than the iPhone, Ms Hilton, Anna-Nicole Smith, Iran and two people I've never heard of called Chris Benoit and Vanessa Hudgens. I had to Google to find out who they are, which may have pushed them ahead of the World Cup by now.

Note that people were searching for "World Cup", not "ICC World Cup", which the governing body was insisting we call the cursed thing.

A Prior engagement

Poor old Ian Bell. He comes out to bat at No 6 under some pressure, knowing that he may lose his place for the next Test if Michael Vaughan and Andrew Flintoff are both fit, plays confidently and comfortably for a hundred and is not out by the close, and yet everyone is talking about some new wicketkeeping sensation called Prior.

What a Test debut by Matt Prior, though. Not just for the runs he made (126 of them by the close) but for the fact that they came at a run a ball. It is all the more impressive given that he had scored only 158 runs in seven innings for Sussex coming into this side. Let's hope his keeping is up to scratch. West Indies may not have the best bowlers in the world, but you still have to make the runs against them. Kevin Pietersen didn't yesterday.

Incidentally, consider this: Pietersen, universally regarded (especially by himself) as the best batsman in England, has scored six hundreds and nine fifties in his 45 Test innings to date. Bell, universally regarded as a batsman perpetually on the verge of losing his place, has played two innings fewer than Pietersen and yet has also scored six hundreds with 11 fifties. But does Bell swan around with models and bring out deathly dull autobiographical egofests?