Just when we thought that the England one-day cricket team were turning a corner . . ! The 4-3 series victory over India, which finished the day before the Twenty20 squad flew out to South Africa, had given us hope. But performances in the inaugural shortest form of the game tournament have been variable and Sunday’s defeat by South Africa was a shambles.

Yes, players drop catches, especially under lights, and yes, they can miss the occasional run-out or single that becomes a two. But you don’t need to have the mathematical acumen of an Oxford professor to realise that the basic laws of logic tell you to play your big hitters before your scratch-around middle order players on a run chase.

So, Peter Moores, pray tell us why Dimitri Mascarenhas , who hit five sixes in the final over in the Oval one-dayer against India, was left sitting on the bench while the so-called Twenty20 ‘specialist’ Jeremy Snape was poking a bat around for what seemed an eternity for seven measly runs. By the time Mascarenhas reached the crease the match was beyond England.

'There is a lot of bad feeling around the nets and in the middle. Proteas skipper Graeme Smith is not on speaking terms with Pietersen'


This is not a personal attack on Snape, but I fail to see two things that the England management has seen fit to see about the Leicestershire spin bowling batsman. Firstly, in Twenty20 terms, a domestic batting average of under 27 and bowling return of around one wicket per appearance, hardly makes Snape an ‘expert’. And secondly, and with respect to Snape’s age (34), why does a player in the twilight of his career get the nod over say, an exciting talent like Yorkshire’s Adil Rashid, who is clearly going to carve out a great career as a leg spinner and lower middle order batsman?

The answer actually lies with Snape, who has developed a parallel career as a sports psychologist and indeed has been called up by England touring teams wearing the therapist’s hat. But surely he, as an expert in motivation, would know that at his tender age and not full-on with his cricket, he should not be playing in the fastest form of the game on a world stage. Unfortunately, the powers that be at the ECB think otherwise.

Now we come to the Kevin Pietersen run-out. Sky Sports reported that within an hour of the incident, they had received hundreds of emails complaining that Shaun Pollock impeded KP and that the third umpire should not have given him out. Nonsense. Pietersen, like England bowling coach Allan Donald, are native South Africans who have chosen to sleep with the enemy.

There is a lot of bad feeling around the nets and in the middle. Proteas skipper Graeme Smith is not on speaking terms with Pietersen. Knowing this, what does the ‘English’ star go and do? He tries to take a quick single and instead of running away from Pollock he invites the bowler to sneakily get in his way causing a collision and run-out.

Pietersen does indeed hold the moral high ground and Pollock may well have been at fault in obstructing the run. But in the equivalent of a World Cup, there is no moral high ground, there is only a winner and a loser. Aside from dropped catches by James Anderson and Luke Wright, Pietersen, the South African batting sensation who decided England had more of a future than his native country, and Snape, the journeyman cricketer turned shrink, showed clearly why on Sunday night, England were a bunch of losers.

So what's your verdict on Snape and the Pietersen incident? Post your comments below or submit an article to Sportingo.