A bizzare week for English cricket

England Team Director Andy Flower must be scratching his head and wondering what to make over his teams last three performances in this months Champions Trophy.

Two wins against arguably the best two One Day sides in Sri Lanka and South Africa, before a strange loss to New Zealand have underlined England's inconsistency in this form of the game, depite qualifying for the Semi Final's of the tournament.

Flower and England captain Andrew StraussAndrew Strauss have said the two wins over hosts South Africa and group rivals Sri Lanka were 'Easily the best two performances in One Day cricket by this side.'

However the batting collapse against the Kiwi's has been blamed on the wicket in Johannesburg, not the England team itself despite its reminiscence of the recent ODI series against Australia.

But lets concentrate on the positives first, finally some England batting to write home about. The England middle order finally got its act together and began scoring runs.

The momentum of Eoin Morgan's 62* in securing victory in the opening tie against Sri Lanka was then followed by Owais ShahOwais Shah hitting potentially a career saving 98 whilst Paul CollingwoodPaul Collingwood knocked 82 as they batting England into a match winning position against hosts South Africa.

However the highlight for England's batting so far as to have been Eoin Morgan's brutal knock of 67 from just 34 balls in the same game. Given the situation, and the teams recent form, Morgan's efforts helped his team clear the 300 mark and went along way to securing victory.

Morgan also proved his credentials behind the stumps after first choice Wicketkeeper Matt Prior withdrew with illness. Despite missing one stumping Morgan looked an able deputy both against the Proteas and in the following game against New Zealand.

The maturity of the bowling is another factor which has impressed in the last few games, especially after the terrible bowling in the majority of the series against Australia.

James Anderson's returns of 3-20 against Sri Lanka and 3-47 against South Africa in the following game have yet again reinforced the claims of him being one of the best in the world game.

What impresses with Anderson is that he has now developed a type of bowling to combat batsmen in conditions where swing, (his main weapon) isn't working. He mixes his speed, length and position of delivery at the crease to continually work the batsmen.

This was seen best against South Africa where he was the only bowler to trouble Graeme Smith during his 141. You have to argue that when England win, Anderson performing exceptionally well usually accompanies it.

Stuart BroadStuart Broad on the other hand has fluctuated this summer, partly because he has played so much cricket in the past twelve months, also because of several niggles that keep flaring up.

However he has come to the fore with ten wickets in three games in this years Champions Trophy, including four in the final group game against New Zealand, despite fighting a losing battle.

Looking ahead to tomorrow's semi final clash with Australia, England have the right to be a little nervy. After all its barely a fortnight since they met the Aussie's and despite winning the final game of the series, they were outclassed in the first six games.

England now have the confidence of victory to build upon however, take the freak game against the Kiwi's out of consideration and in their past three games England have been extremely impressive. And it is this that has given supporters renewed hope that their team can perform against the bigger nations, and only time will tell if they have what it takes to go on and win their first Champions Trophy title.