New-look English team raring to go

The England cricket team is looking like no England team has done before. This bunch has a rare spirit about the way they're playing their cricket, writes Kadambari Murali.

It's a beautiful, breezy day here in the English capital. People are smiling at each other, even in mid-week, countless couples are enjoying their moments in the sun and there's a certain joie de vivre about the whole place.

This isn't India where the fluctuating fortunes of the cricket team are a national obsession, so the mood of the moment has probably not got anything to do with the animated way England is playing their cricket. But it's nice to see anyway.

And somehow, it all fits in. The England cricket team is looking like no England team has done before. And it's not just to do with the kind of results they are getting. There have been very successful English teams in the past too. But Michael Vaughan's bunch has a rare spirit about the way they're playing their cricket - with unusual passion.

The bonhomie that exists within the team is evident to anyone. It's there in the way they run up to a bowler and pat his back when he's not having a good spell, it's there in the laughter when there's a rare misfield, it's there in the wisecracks when they're practicing and it's of course there in the results.

Somehow, it just doesn't seem like this is England we're watching. We're more used to thinking of English teams as somewhat snobbish, very guarded in their reactions, often beset by groupism and vividly conscious of what people are saying.

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