2 minute readIt’s been three years since we last went to the Old Trafford Test and didn’t see Monty Panesar take five wickets. Actually, that’s not strictly true. We went to two days of last year’s West Indies Test and on one of the days he only took four wickets. In 2006
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Daniel Flynn’s lost tooth
< 1 minute readJacob Oram and the short ball: You pair are going to be great friends. It may have been Daniel Flynn’s tooth that James Anderson removed with a bouncer, but Jacob Oram looked the more uncomfortable against short-pitched bowling. Of course Flynn’s bloodied mélange of flesh and teeth went way beyond
Continue readingThe Old Trafford pitch
< 1 minute readSportsfreak are running a cricket tipping competition about the England v New Zealand series. We are currently equal second out of 12. For the last Test we used reasoning for precisely one of the questions and got it right. Michael Vaughan has scored bucketloads of runs at Lord’s, so we
Continue readingJacob Oram and his face
< 1 minute readMost teams struggle for all-rounders. In New Zealand they’re ten a penny. If only they could find a couple more half-decent specialist batsmen, they’d be a force to be reckoned with. This new batting line-up’s missing a few of the bigger names, of course, but even those batting absentees dabbled
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Bad light stopped play
< 1 minute readIt’s not often we agree with Mark Nicholas, if only because we don’t float through life spouting words like ‘divine’ and ‘exquisite’ every second sentence, but we think he had a point this one time he was commentating over Channel 5 highlights of cricketers walking on and off the field.
Continue readingBrendon McCullum uses his feet
2 minute readBrendon McCullum recently found his feet. Now he’s putting them to good use. If you’ve read the page we just linked to, this might sound kind of familiar. This is the Test version of that post. Brendon McCullum’s had 52 Test innings. In his first 45, he managed two hundreds
Continue readingEngland’s brilliant white kit
< 1 minute readA lot of people are asking whether England’s new Test kit is the whitest ever seen on a cricket field. It isn’t. That honour goes to the outfit worn by Algernon Denby-Farthing in a match for Yorkshire against Kent in 1885. Denby-Farthing was obsessive about the cleanliness of his whites,
Continue readingCricket lunch
< 1 minute readWe pretty much know the teams. We pretty much know the tactics. What we don’t know is what the two teams will be feasting on during the first lunch break and who will fare the better. It’s common cricketing courtesy to clap the players when they emerge for the afternoon
Continue readingMatthew Hoggard hatches fiendish plot to get back into the England team
< 1 minute readHe’s going to distract one of the Test team while they’re driving, causing them to have a car accident. “I need to keep knocking on the door because they’re in the driving seat at the moment.” We never thought he’d stoop so low.
Continue readingAndrew Flintoff bowling like a beast
< 1 minute readNot a cow or an ocelot or a langur monkey, but some sort of robotic beast specifically created to fire out intimidating back-of-a-length bowling. Paul Horton’s hundred looks even better after Durham were bowled out for 90. James Anderson took most of the wickets, but according to Lancashire’s captain, Stuart
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