8th September

I wasn't able to catch either Murray's defeat, nor Pakistan's crushing T20 victory over England, but nevertheless I want to react to them, so I figured I'd keep this one reasonably brief.

Murray Crashes Out

With all of the heavy duty tennis that he has played recently, and admissions that he was struggling to sleep amongst other things, it shouldn't come as a massive surprise that Murray fell up short in the US Open, especially as he had some tough opposition, having to take down Nishikori, Wawrinka and probably Djokovic in order to do so. 

But will be surprising is the manner of the defeat. Murray won the first set with ease but let Nishikori back into it, and went on to lose his cool multiple times, be it at the rain delays as the roof came across, the stadium announcers making a loud noise that interrupted a point or even a butterfly flying across the net. As Murray increasingly grew frustrated, the match slipped away from him, indeed he nearly blew the third set, being broken back three times after taking the advantage. His distractedness at the start of the fourth set proved his undoing, as Nishikori won it at a canter, and never looked back.

There's no doubt that this will be a hard defeat for Murray to take, but certainly one that he'll have to take on the chin, and get right back on the horse. Murray has been wrestling with his own mental stamina for months now, and having held his nerve to win the Olympics and Wimbledon, it was inevitable that sooner or later he would crack, and it's better to have happened now, when he has a long break to recover before the next major, and in a tournament he would have been hard pressed to win, than in January, at the start of the new season. 

But the truth is that this was an opportunity that Murray has let slip. Djokovic might not be this vulnerable again for a while, and Murray has been on exceptional form, form that it might be hard to recapture come the Australian Open. But nevertheless, it has been a brilliant few months for Murray, and dwelling on this defeat is exactly the kind of negative attitude that caused this defeat in the first place. 

Pakistan Turn The Tables

After being embarrassed in the recent ODI series, it's strange that Pakistan could turn out such a dominant display with both bat and ball in the only T20, reducing England to a shoddy 135-7, with England collapsing after the dismissals of Hales and Roy, as Morgan, Root, Stokes and Buttler all failed. It was a pretty sorry display from England, and Pakistan make it look just that, chasing the total in less than 15 overs, losing just one wicket as Sharjeel Khan scored 59, and his opening partner Khalid Latif 59*. The biggest change in fortune has to go to Wahab Riaz, who is so often a bowler that blows hot and cold, and whilst he certainly blew cold in the ODI series, blew hot yesterday, taking 3-18 off his four overs, whilst the equally impressive Imad took 2-17, removing both of England's dangerous openers. 

For England, it was almost a case of trying too hard, desperation setting in and they forgot the basics, allowing Pakistan to tear through their middle order. And the desperation only heightened when Latif, freed from pressure by England's low score, took the game away from them in the first over of the chase, scoring twenty off Jordan. With any sort of pressure on Pakistan released, and England desperate, runs flowed freely and the chase proved easy. 

It's a real shame that a generally excellent summer from England, in all three formats of the game, should end with such a shocking performance, but it's a good reminder that this team still have a lot of work to do. There's always space to improve. Perhaps they thought that this Pakistan bowling attack would offer no threat and so overplayed their hand, playing expansive shots before getting in. But if that was the case, then they were in for a nasty shock, as Pakistan bowled and fielded excellently. 

Next up for England, the sub-continent. There is little of consequence to be gleaned from a single T20, and certainly this appears to have been a one-off poor performance from England, who turned over Pakistan 3-0 last winter in the T20 series in the UAE, and of course almost won the T20 world cup. However, it is a sign that this England team should not take their foot off the pedal, or relax for a moment, because one poor performance can always cost you at this level. 

The Hard and Fast Section

• £6bn for F1. Blimey.
• The Paralympics is underway. Come on GB.
• No Emre Can. We're dead. 
• Still could be worse. Could be Palace.