2 minute readFirst up, tail-enders. They’re ace, but they’re a dying breed. Blame professionalism. Now we love lower-order shenanigans as much as the next person, but the key word there is ‘shenanigans’. A textbook forward defensive stroke is not a shenanigan. These are shenanigans. A tail-end innings should bring all the fun
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T20 World Cup final match report
2 minute readTom writes: I sort of watched the T20 World Cup final. Here is roughly what happened. A motley crew of myself, and myself’s pals William, Lottie and Millie assembled at my house for the purposes of watching something approximating cricket. This was convenient for me as it is closer to
Continue readingMop-up of the day – heads and faces
2 minute readCan New Zealand do what Australia couldn’t and give Pakistan a decent Test match? Brendon McCullum’s already made a major contribution to his team’s cause in the second Test by winning the toss. We don’t actually know whether McCullum went for heads or tails or whether he just passively watched
Continue readingMop-up of the day – legs and hands
< 1 minute readOur latest Kings of Cricket piece is up on the All Out Cricket website. The subject is Paul Collingwood. Bear with us. We think we’ve made our case. It’s mostly about his magical magnetic hand, but there’s more to it than that. Consider it a paean to three-dimensionality; an ode
Continue readingMop-up of the day – rail and radar
< 1 minute readA lot of people were going for the ‘we can land a robot on a comet but we can’t get the trains to arrive on time’ line of reasoning yesterday. Just to let you know, it’s not the same people. Different people are responsible for space missions and rail travel.
Continue readingMop-up of the day – bones, Bangladesh batsmen and battery
< 1 minute readIs MS Dhoni’s arm made out of just one super fast-growing bone? We’re imagining an ever-extending protuberance that requires regular pruning based on the following from Cricinfo: “On the eve of the meeting, a BCCI insider revealed that Dhoni was recovering from a “right forearm” injury. By the time the
Continue readingMop-up of the last few days – learning, ‘restaurants’ and Roach
< 1 minute readSorry, we know content’s been a bit thin on the ground this week. Our nickname in one job was ‘Bare Minimum’ and we seem to have been harking back to those days. Learning Michael Clarke earlier this week: “We were hopeful that we learnt some lessons from our trip to
Continue readingSpeaking of Pakistan…
< 1 minute readBecause surely you are. Australia are 136-5 in reply to Pakistan’s 570-6 at the time of writing. Younis Khan is averaging over 200 in the series. Unless this current partnership really goes somewhere, that’s better than Australia’s top six combined. But never mind unheralded Pakistani bowlers ripping through top Test
Continue readingMop-up of the day – Younus Khan’s bat and Murali’s balls
2 minute readYounus Khan’s just made his third Test hundred on the bounce. We mentioned that he was underrated after the first one. Let’s revisit that. We all know Younus averages some way north of 50 and that he’s now made Test hundreds against every nation, but let’s dig a little deeper.
Continue readingEngland v Sri Lanka at Lord’s Day three match report
3 minute readGed writes: When Daisy and I go to a day of international cricket at Lord’s these days, I apply for seats in the Lower Compton or Lower Edrich, as Daisy likes to hide from the sun. These seats are relatively unpopular with the county members, so we tend to get
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