England need to pull up their socks ahead of the third ODI by CricketArchive Staff Reporter

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Event:

England in India 2008/09

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DateLine: 19th November 2008

 

England need to pull up their socks ahead of the third ODI Both teams would want to take the bull by its horns in the third ODI at Kanpur. India simply to close the series.England on the other hand would want to get a foot in the door. Trailing 2-0 in a seven match series is fine as long as England win the third ODI. But if they do not then they will be playing catch up cricket.India on the other hand would want to maintain their consistency to close down the series here itself.

The last thing India would want at this point of time is for complacency to creep in. They are on a roll. They enjoyed themselves fully during this break. Talks of a 7-0 whitewash and becoming the number one team in the world buzzing through their ears, they would want to shut all this talk out of their system and keep the foot on the peddle. Mahendra Singh Dhoni along with the coach Gary Kirsten would want to drive home this point at any cost.They would really want to focus hard on the job at hand.

England on the other hand have a lot of distractions off the field. The fact that they want to play in the IPL after the disappointment of the Stanford 20/20 shows that the team is not fully focussed on the task at hand. The talks between the ECB and IPL chairman Lalit Modi failing which they don't seem to be interested in signing the central contracts. The fact that the talks are mostly surrounding the IPL shows that England don't seem to be focussed on this one day series.

If this is the case it might not be good news for the Indians.They would want a fully focussed England team on the park without any distractions so as to be on a level playing field. And one man who seems to be focussed in this Indian team is Yuvraj Singh. After accusations of lack of focus he has come with a bang by hitting two hundreds in two matches and joining the fab four in doing so.With Gautam Gambhir also continuing with his consistency and Sehwag for company, India look like a well balanced unit.Rohit Sharma and Suresh Raina would want to come up with big scores to contribute to the teams win

With Ishant Sharma declared fit India have more options in their bowling front.With R.P.Singh looking slightly off colour, Dhoni might be tempted to make a change. But he will be happy with the bench strength, and the way the team has shaped up, and with India now jumping up 2 spots to number 3 in ICC rankings, he would want to keep the momentum going. Kevin Pietersen on the other hand would want to rally his troops and keep them away from the off field distractions and bounce back in the series. And for that he would need nothing less than a team effort.