Kieswetter inspires England to become T20 world champs

By Gemma Wright

England have won the World T20 in Barbados, beating Australia by seven-wickets in a one-sided final.

Had England captain Paul Collingwood sat down last night to script his dream game, he couldn’t have asked for better. Winning the toss and electing to field, England claimed early wickets, withstood the inevitable late assault from the Husseys and sped to victory thanks to two outstanding innings by Kevin Pietersen and Craig Kieswetter. It means England, finally, have won their first ever ICC trophy.

Had Australia’s middle-order not dug them out of the mire once again, England may clinched victory with even more than 18 balls to spare. Sidebottom struck with the second ball of the game, though it was lucky for Kieswetter and England that Swann was at first slip to take the keepers spilled catch. Watson went for two, as did Warner, and Haddin 1 to leave the Aussies struggling on 24/3 after the power-play overs, Australia’s lowest power-play total in the tournament.

Captain Michael Clarke steadied the ship with his 27 from 27 balls before he was well caught by a diving Collingwood at short mid wicket. The England captain rarely drops those.

Man of the match winners in their super 8’s victories, the Hussey brothers and Cameron White powered Australia to a total of 147 from their 20 overs: Daivd Hussey (59) and Cameron White (30) and Mike Hussey (17 unbeaten). The comeback started in the 13th over, bowled by Yardy, which went for 21 runs. Although not abundant in boundaries, they kept the score ticking over with ones and twos. England kept them to under 150, Broad’s final over going for seven and taking the wicket of David Hussey.

Kevin Pietersen made the chase look easy. Coming in after the loss of Lumb in the second over for two, KP (47) and Kieswetter (63) shrugged off some hostile fast bowling and soon gained the upper hand. Watson’s bowling suffered the most, his second over going for 16. Both Kieswetter and KP played magnificent shots, and quickly had the Aussies worried. A rare misfield by David Hussey to let the ball go through for four showed just how rattled the Aussies had become.

Pietersen was eventually caught by Warner on the boundary off the bowling of Steve Smith for 47, after a second wicket partnership of 111 from 71 balls. Kieswetter didn’t last much longer, going just 6 balls later.

It seemed almost too good to be true, and yet somehow inevitable that England and Australia should avoid playing each other all tournament, and then face each other in the final. England have a well deserved victory here. Since being appointed just over a year ago, England coach Andy Flower, lead England to an Ashes win over the Aussies in England and this World T20 victory. Now for the Ashes in Australia next…

‘I’m a terrible Twenty20 player!’

From SPIN, October, 2007

SPIN: Are you expecting to get a hostile reaction when you walk out to bat in South Africa?
KP: I got a hostile reception when I walked out to bat in England yesterday [at an Edgbaston ground packed with India supporters] yesterday! It doesn’t faze me one bit. I don’t even think about it.

Will your knowledge of the local conditions an advantage?
Not really. International players travel round the world all the time now. They’ve all experienced the conditions. Besides, I’ve never played there in September. It’s a bizarre time to hold the tournament: it’s the start of their summer and the ball will move all over the place. Still, it’s the same for everyone. I love the country. It’s an awesome place.

England’s established players haven’t played much T20. Can you learn from the county specialists who have been drafted in?
They’ve more to learn from us. Playing international cricket is very different. There are completely different pressures. It’s much more intense.

How do you feel the format suits your game?
I’m a terrible Twenty20 player! I’ve not really taken to Twenty20; it’s not really my game. People think I’m suited to it because I’ll just go out and smash the ball straight away, but I’m at my best when I take 20 overs to build an innings. My best innings have all been like that. I prefer not to rush my game.

Looking at England’s ODI cricket, we’ve seen some real improvements since the World Cup, particularly with the fielding. What’s changed?
It was a long winter. I think maybe we were just out of energy. We were battered and battered by the Aussies and then battered by everyone else in the World Cup.
We knew things had to change. We knew we weren’t fulfilling our potential on a regular basis. We knew we had to be open and honest. We had to stop saying how good we are and start actually being good. We knew the fielding needed to improve. We needed regular runs from the batsmen and wickets from the opening bowlers.
Everyone has brought into it. Our performance in the field at Edgbaston was one of the best of any England team I’ve been involved in.
Colly has been chucked in the deep end as captain, but he’s doing really well. He’s fresh and he has a good approach. He’s similar to Vaughany in that he is very approachable and anyone can talk to him. I’m really conscious of helping ‘Colly’ out as much as I can. It’s a happy dressing room.

Colly seems to consult you a fair bit on the field…
I just try to help out as much as I can. I wouldn’t say I’m vice-captain or anything like that but Colly is heavily involved in the game, so he talks to me a lot and asks my opinions. Basically we just chuck a few things at each other like bowling changes and fielding positions. We read off a similar script.
We’re still a young team. The exciting thing is how much potential and talent the team has. We definitely went into the series against India as underdogs. They have three batsmen with 36,000 runs between them. None of us will get that amount in our whole careers between us. But I’ve said in a [team] meeting that if we fulfil our potential I don’t think anyone can beat us. We just need consistency to fulfil that potential.

How do you rate your own form?
It doesn’t matter how many runs I score: when we win I’m happy. I’ve scored so many runs for England in one-day cricket and we just keep losing and it’s just the worst thing ever. Personal performances don’t really bother me; they’re good for stats. But everyone wants to be in a winning dressing room. Anyway, I feel fine. I’ve scored quite a lot of runs this summer – close to 1,000 in all competitions. I take pride in my performances and want to be the best player I can be. But winning is the most important thing to me. If I get 0, 0, 0 and 0 but the side win, I’ll be the happiest bloke.

KP was announcing the 2008/9 opening of a new npower Urban Cricket Arena in Birmingham. Last year, npower Urban Cricket, run with the ECB, distributed over 40,000 Urban Cricket kits.