Date:19/02/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/02/19/stories/2008021960451800.htm

Sport - Cricket

A learning experience: Joyce

Special Correspondent

— Photo: Tom Shaw/Getty Images

Ed Joyce.

Mumbai: Eliminated from the Duleep Trophy cricket competition, England Lions will play three one-day matches against Mumbai, Maharashtra and Saurashtra at the Brabourne Stadium, Cricket Club of India.

Ed Joyce, who has played 17 One-Day Internationals for England and has notched a century against Australia, said: “We are playing three reasonably good teams. We have lost Monty Panesar for the Test series against New Zealand. We are hoping to get something from the last three games.

“At the start of the tournament we told ourselves that we have to learn and having not played before coming here it showed in the first innings of the Duleep Trophy (against Central at Baroda). It’s a learning experience, but the seamers bowled a lot straighter to get more leg before wicket decisions than at home,” he added.

Joyce, who opens for Middlesex said since the pitches in India are slow, the Indian seamers aim for the wickets straightaway, whereas in England there is swing and movement off the pitch. “Our guys bowl in the channel outside the off-stump. They bowled well in the first match (against Central), but it was a completely different wicket against a strong West Zone team.”

He said the Twenty20 event in England will be more intense with the top two teams earning a right to play the proposed Champions League.

“When Twenty20 began in England in 2003, it was not seen as a joke. Every year the teams looked at it with intensity. It will be interesting to see how it (IPL) works, who plays in which team, how seriously it can be taken, how the teams gel and have the team ethics going. But Twenty20 is an exciting idea and that’s the way going forward. You have huge crowds and more money coming into the game,” Joyce said.