That England deserved to win the World T20 Thingy is beyond doubt.
India can’t get their excuses right, South Africa’s retirement squad struggled, Sri Lanka had no form, West Indies waited for Gayle, Sri Lanka waited for Mahela, New Zealand under performed even for them and Australia were out played.
England was organised, worked hard, had no passengers, they got away with Wright at six and they played very sensible cricket when chasing targets.
That England did all this is the most surprising.
I saw them play in Stanford’s game under KP. That was less than 2 years ago.
I saw them lose to Holland. That was less than a year ago.
And I saw Abdul Razzaq smash them all around the ground this year. This year.
But Flower is some coach. England has no champions in any of their teams, they have class players, role players and people who should be cut looses, yet since he took over they keep getting better.
They have the Ashes, managed to draw with South Africa in South Africa, got to the semi finals of the Champion’s trophy and now have won the world T20 thingy. They fight hard to win, and even harder to draw. When looking at the stats and the end of series you can never understand how they won, but they do what is necessary.
They are a depressingly well drilled unit, everyone just does their job, no one steals the limelight (since Freddie left), and if one player is down it seems that more often than not there will be 9 or 10 others that will cover them all.
Good coaches leave impressions on their sides. This team is the embodiment of Andy Flower right now.
Hardworking, mentally tough, compact, efficient, strong and better than you expect.
Flower is now the best coach in world cricket, and his team is now a genuine contender rather than the punchline they were before.
It is not hard to respect the man, he played in a cricket team who would have struggled to beat grade cricket sides if it were not for his stubbornness, he did his best to recruit overseas players to Zimbabwe just so they side had a spine and he then stood up to a dictator.
Flower did also play for South Australia, but no one is perfect.
While KP was man of the series and Kieswetter man of the final, Flower is the man of English cricket right now. English cricket might not have been the sleeping giant that Indian cricket was, but it was a large lumbering idiot walking around and drooling on itself.
Flower saved it from itself; he was the Leon to its Matilda. A fatherly figure from a different land who does things his own way but knows how to teach the skills he learnt. Although that makes England Natalie Portman, but in this tournament they probably deserved to be.
I never thought England would earn a Natalie Portman from me for a performance in a white ball tournament, but andy Flower probably never thought he’d be compared to Jean Reno.
