The English batting came good against Kenya, the semi-finalist from 2003, to secure a win by seven wickets and pave the way to the second round from Group C along with New Zealand.

Bowling first, England restricted Kenya to 177 with only Steve Tikolo contributing significantly with 76. The other batsmen played like they were a minnow team and not the semi-finalists from 2003! Andrew Flintoff along with James Anderson and Paul Collingwood were the main bowlers picking up two wickets each. Freddie returned to the England team with a bang picking up 2/35 in an important match for England.

The English reply was well managed Ed Joyce (75) and Kevin Pietersen (56*) after a shaky start had reduced them to 2/52. But the total was too small and the bowling didn't have enough teeth to bit into the entire batting line-up. And expectedly, they withered away.

The architect of England's win, Kevin Pietersen is now eyeing the semi-final and is also wary of the team behaviour after the events of last weekend. "I think we will be very quiet now. We got into trouble last week so I think the boys will be very quiet, go to Guyana, concentrate on our cricket and hopefully win four or five games in the Super Eights and get ourselves back here for the semi-finals hopefully," said Pietersen.

England opens their Super Eight stage with a match against hosts West Indies in Guyana on March 30. In many ways, that's a match-up of equals since both teams can be brilliant on their day and quite pathetic on an off day. Should both teams have a good or bad day on the 30th, it will throw up an interesting match.

The preliminaries are over and from now on, every run and every wicket counts. Big time! The English have done well to make it through after all the controversies but need to focus now. There are two wins for the taking against Ireland and potentially Bangladesh and they would do well not to muck that up!

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England captain, Michael Vaughan
On their victory
"We were good today. When you come up against a potential banana skin you just want the basics done right and be very professional."

Man of the Match - Ed Joyce
On him being born in Ireland
"It's obviously a bit of a strange one being an Irishman. But my first game for England was against Ireland so hopefully I've got that out of my system". "I know the Irish players pretty well," he said. "There will probably be a bit of banter but I haven't got any of their numbers. They haven't been dishing them out to me so maybe they are playing it cool."


On his performance
"I'm just pretty happy with the way I'm playing at the moment. I've got two fifties in the last two games so hopefully I can just continue on against Ireland."

Kenyan captain, Steve Tikolo
On his decision to bat
"I thought the wicket looked fairly good for batting. The decision to bat was valid we just didn't get partnerships going, we lost wickets at regalr intervals."

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