Last night the Australians once again won the cricket world cup for the third time in a row and once again England were not able to make the semi finals. So what is wrong with English cricket and why are we not able to reach the success levels of the Australian team?

Last nights game was memorable for many reasons, perhaps most notably the way in which the game finished in darkness. However it should be remembered for a fantastic innings by Adam Gilchrist. He managed to score an amazing 149 runs from just 104 balls and was a clear example of the Australian players being able to perform under pressure.

Pressure I believe is one of the things that prevents our players from achieving what their talent suggests they are capable of. This applies to most sports we England represent the nation, especially football. You look at the talent on the field and name for name England and the Australian team are not too far apart. We have the likes of Michael Vaughan – perhaps one of the most natural English batsmen of the last 10 years, Freddie Flintoff, a class bowler and can bat to, and then finally Kevin Pieterson a truly outstanding talent in the batting department. It is players like these that are unable to perform under pressure whereas the Australian players are. But why?

Not having really experienced the atmosphere around different sports in different countries I am not sure, however I expect that it is the weigh of expectation on the team that is the problem. Although as I have said we are comparable with Australia everyone knows that they are better than us. However the press and the general public are bitter and upset when we do not succeed in winning these trophies and this passes down to the players. Perhaps if we had more realistic expectations of our players they would feel less pressured and therefore they may perform better.

I have been watching county cricket this afternoon – the Friends Provident one day competition from Tanton in the West Country. Although I really enjoy watching county cricket it is clear that with watching the world cup for the last month the standards in the county game are a million miles away from the kind of standard internationals call for. No disrespect to the players out there but the world cup and international cricket is in a different league. Maybe this has something to do with the national sides lack of success?

With the Australian team they have about 20 – 25 players that are constantly competing for a place in the first eleven and anyone of them could come in and do well. For the first half of the tournament they were without Andrew Symonds and Shane Watson yet they still won every game. The England team are not like that. There is a clear 12 – 14 players that could play and other than that they are clearly a second string choice. Maybe this is due to the lack of a decent standard in county cricket?

I propose more foreign players to be playing in county cricket. In today’s game there was Justin Langer – class player and the captain of Somerset. Then there was Mushtaq Ahmed another great bowler in his time but no clearly past his best, and Ranna Naved, a current Pakistan international. That gives only three players for all the others to learn from. Take the premiership in football. There are dozens of world class players for all the English players to learn from. After all you learn the most from playing the best. So maybe the rule needs changing in cricket.

By no means is English cricket a lost cause. After all in proper cricket (?) – test matches – we are the second best in the world but we do need to do something in order to improve.