Jumpin' Januaries, Batman

[El Gordo]

I had a quick read of the Telegraph article, and it seemed to be a reasonable comment to me. It's essentially saying that England are a pretty crap one-day side and have little chance of doing well in the World Cup. I learn that we've lost 18 out of the last 23 one-dayers and scored 250 in only 7 of those 23 matches.

We're just not that good. We have been good in the past, and will undoubtedly be good again. At the moment we're having an extended bad patch which was why winning the Ashes in 2005 was celebrated so wildly. Before the 2005 Ashes, I had a bet with a workmate. I bet him £10 that England would win 1 test match. He thought I was mad, and eagerly agreed to the wager. Neither of us considered the possibility that England would win more than one. It comes back to the old question -- is it negativity or is it just being realistic?

We do the opposite with football. More than 50% of people here think that England are certain to win any football tournament they enter. The reality? We've won nothing since 1966. Here we have something probably just as bad as pessimism -- huge expectation, leading to much wailing and chest beating after the inevitable failure.

Here's where I think we'll agree... London has the Olympics in 2012. I'm thrilled about it, and most people are too. Yet there is a sizeable minority who have done nothing but moan about it and claim that it's going to be an appalling failure: way over budget, over-hyped, cause transport chaos, blah-di-blah. They seem to love any bad news that appears about it.

Now to me, this is unpardonable negativity. Why? Because it's entirely up to us whether the Olympics is a success or a failure. It's in our hands. If we want it to be the best Olympics there ever was and ever will be, we can make that happen by proper planning and implementation. So here, negativity has no place.

With the cricket, no amount of planning can produce a World Cup winning side within a few months. We can plan to win the 2011 tournament however, and any negativity aimed at our chances for 2011 should be stamped on. But once you're on the cusp of a tournament it's too late to go from where we are to winners. To me that's just facing up to the facts.