England, September 29: To explain England’s bizarre exhibitions of the one-day arts, their captain Andrew Strauss often compares them to Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
It is an easy, inexact shorthand, but it means that England can be useless one day and magnificent the next.
Mr Hyde, who had been overstaying his welcome and appeared resistant to desperate blandishments to shove off, has for the time being left. Dr Jekyll is in town. Owais Shah perfectly symbolises this dichotomy. In his case choose any antonymic extreme you fancy: chalk, cheese, lager, beer, day, night, beautiful, ugly.
For weeks leading up the Champions Trophy, Shah had not only been dreadful, he had been a menace. Not only was he out of form but he was getting out in soppy ways like prodding to mid-off. And not only that but his running between the wickets was so ill-judged that neither he nor his partners were safe.
–Agencies