< 1 minute readHave a tantrum. That’s what we’d do. Have a real, world-class, multi-award winning, all-time-hall-of-fame hissy fit. A proper toy-flinging, teary-eyed shamefest. The key is to act so insufferably badly that Jayawardene can’t look at you for embarrassment. You want to make him think: ‘This is intolerable. I literally can’t bear
Continue readingAuthor: King Cricket
Otherwise known as Alex Bowden, a lapsed cricket journalist who has written for ESPNCricinfo, wisden.com, Cricket 365, The Cricketer and plenty of other places.
Links to some non-cricket writing and a bit more background here.
Misbah-ul-Haq – another glitteringly sedate hundred
< 1 minute readMisbah-ul-Haq’s one of those players who gets his own post even if we’ve got nothing to say now. He got 133 not out in a match where runs are as inevitable as weekend overeating. He did his best to stand out from the crowd though – for much of his
Continue readingBad decisions don’t decide a Test
2 minute readEngland will be pretty disappointed to have only made 351 and they’ll point to a couple of rough decisions as being one cause, but if they’re a serious Test side, they should forget about them. It’s not like they’re going to get overturned after the match. Don’t dwell on it.
Continue readingSourav Ganguly’s double hundred
2 minute readWell, at least his highest Test score’s higher than his highest one-day international score now. We saw his highest score in one-day internationals, 183 against Sri Lanka in the 1999 World Cup, and there are similarities with yesterday’s knock. On both occasions Ganguly was largely overshadowed by his batting partner
Continue readingYuvraj Singh in Test cricket
< 1 minute readSo Yuvraj Singh finally gets a Test match. It’s a fairly rare occurrence. Ridiculously rare. He arrived at the crease with India 61-4 and proceeded to smear 28 fours and a six, finishing with 169 off 203 balls in a partnership with Sourav Ganguly that was worth 300. It was
Continue readingHow to play the back foot defensive
< 1 minute readTextbook. Keep your eyes off the ball to minimise any chance of edging it. This batsman is looking the opposite way to eliminate even the slightest possibility that he might catch sight of the ball. The merest glimpse could potentially cause him to play for it. Better still he has
Continue readingSpin bowlers: we even love the ones who are complete bastards
3 minute readAre You A Left-Arm Chinaman? will shortly be celebrating its first birthday. In honour of its bias towards spin and to join in the festivities, we’re contributing this. We thought we’d write about our favourite spinner. So who is that? Well, it’s probably Monty Panesar, but this doesn’t quite sit
Continue readingEngland’s English bowlers
< 1 minute readWe hate it when England field a bowling attack which is heavily reliant on what you’d call the traditional English seam bowler. Hoggard, Sidebottom and Anderson are all great bowlers and if we’re honest, we’d probably have gone with that attack if we’d been in charge, but you always end
Continue readingIan Bell can’t see it out
< 1 minute readBoth Ian Bell and Matt Prior withstood the Sri Lankans for quite some time, but they couldn’t finish the job. Muttiah Muralitharan got both of them – with the new ball, no less. Bell had a good match, but if you’re the batsman in form, you need to influence proceedings.
Continue readingWhy we hate the nightwatchman
< 1 minute readWe hate nightwatchmen because we think it’s just a habit. A thoughtless habit borne of tradition. The idea is that if a wicket falls near the end of the day, you put in a lower-order batsman to protect the proper batsman from the strike and martyr himself if there’s a
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