NCCC News : Farbrace: Positive Intent Key To Leveling Series

England interim coach Paul Farbrace has backed his England side to continue the positive intent shown in the series so far and level the series in the fourth Royal London One-Day International at Trent Bridge.

The hosts have scored over 300 in all of the first three matches with captain Eoin Morgan leading the way with half-centuries in all three innings.

And Farbrace wants more of the same when the teams line up tomorrow in a game that they need to win to keep the series alive.

“The word intent, I will be boring people with it, but intent is the absolute key,” Farbrace said.

“It’s all very well talking about it - the key is taking it on. I’m so pleased with the intent that the players have shown and I’m so pleased with the high level of skill that they’ve shown.

“We know how much we’ve got to keep pushing them to see how much they can improve. Until you let yourself go you never really know what you are capable of.

“Getting 300 people go away disappointed – that shows how far the team have come in a very short space of time.

“We’ve been trying for a long time to get 300 and we’ve got it now consistently in three games. We’re really pleased with that.

“You can easily say if we bat the extra five overs, we might have got another 30 runs.

“But if we had of batted cautiously from the first over we might have got 260. I’m not bothered about losing the extra five overs, I’m more bothered about the fact the lads really played with the high level of skill and good intent all the way through.

“We’ve said all along we’d rather be bowled out for 200 in 23 overs than dribble to 240-250 in 50 overs.”

The 302 England posted at The Ageas Bowl on Sunday was their sixth of the calendar year, a new record.

Despite that England trail the series 2-1 and Farbrace insists that the Trent Bridge game is all about winning and taking the series into a decider.

“I don’t want us to keep talking about developing and learning I want to talk about winning because that’s what you play for,” he said.

“International sport is about winning games of cricket and not developing. You develop whist you’re winning and we’ve got to find a way to do that.

“I’m really pleased that we are pushing New Zealand hard and that’s two very close games that we’ve had with them that we’ve lost.

“Once you start winning games like that then you know you are making really good progress.

“You don’t want to keep losing close games, you want to start winning close games. That breeds confidence and the next time you’re in that situation you know how to win that game and close that game out.

“That’s the stage we’ve got to get to if we really are serious about being one of the best teams in world cricket with the white ball.”

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