< 1 minute readIf Joe Root’s going to try and lead by example, he might want to check whether anyone’s actually following him. If no-one does, then we’re afraid it’s just plain old ‘batting well’ – which is what he always used to do anyway. What kind of captaincy is that? If you’re
Continue readingCategory: England
BBC to show “some” live cricket from 2020 as highlights move from Channel 5
2 minute readThe England and Wales Cricket Board has recently accepted that it needs to get some live cricket onto free-to-air TV. The question most of us have been asking is what constitutes “some”. From 2020 (appropriately enough) the BBC will be showing two men’s and one women’s T20 internationals each summer.
Continue readingLiam Livingstone’s golden duck was one of the finest
2 minute readLiam Livingstone’s England debut was pretty spectacular. He didn’t just fail to display his talent to a wider audience, he actively concealed it. He dropped a catch; mishit everything, including the one boundary that he hit; bust his bat; and then got run out. He also found time to enrage
Continue readingAB de Villiers plays decisive innings to win first T20 for England
2 minute readA real man of the match performance from AB de Villiers won England the first T20 international against South Africa. The greatest sportsman who ever lived ate up 58 balls in making an unbeaten 65. If the innings hinted at a two-paced pitch, England’s batsmen only noticed one of them
Continue readingEngland play South Africa in a pretty meaningless T20 international and Bob isn’t playing
< 1 minute readWe said you were going to start noticing everyone going mental about Mason Crane. Today marks an obvious step-up in mentalgoing as it seems highly likely the leg-spinner will make his international debut. Indirectly referring to him, AB de Villiers grappled with the meaning of the word ‘unknown’. “A few
Continue readingThere was a rumour that England had ‘solved’ one-day cricket
< 1 minute readNot the case. It was perhaps true that they’d solved modern one-day cricket… but then they came up against Pakistan. As we said the other day, Pakistan don’t care what year it is. They don’t care how other people are approaching one-day cricket these days, they just do their own
Continue readingIf Jason Roy is “due” what will happen to all those runs he saved up?
< 1 minute readJust because someone’s due, it doesn’t mean anything’s actually going to happen any time soon. Trust us on this. Referring to Jason Roy, Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur alluded to the concept of dueness, saying: “We had a discussion in the bus this morning. I was particularly worried that Roy hadn’t
Continue readingAustralia suffer forestation
< 1 minute readThat’s our way of saying they were Wooded. We wrote about the benefits of having Adil Rashid in your side a couple of days ago. Mark Wood offers something similar. Remember how the middle over used to be? It was like the batsmen saw everything in high-definition and everything moved
Continue readingEngland are taking swigs of Adil Rashid again and it’s made them a better team
2 minute readEngland are also through to the semi-finals. A handful of percussive mid-sized innings and some hearty bowling were enough to dispatch New Zealand. Jason Roy was still there, continuing his ill-advised experiments with flips and flicks, and Adil Rashid was back. England’s template was therefore pretty much back in place
Continue readingEngland go with a bit of right-arm fast-medium
2 minute read‘Will four right-arm fast-medium bowlers be sufficient?’ England apparently asked themselves before the opening match of the ICC Champions Trophy. ‘No, better make it five,” they concluded, for reasons that were clear to no-one. It was very odd. One of the few things we said about England’s likely strategy for
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