5 minute readViolence is great, isn’t it? Violence is so much fun. We greatly enjoyed Jonny Bairstow, at Trent Bridge, with a cricket bat. At tea on day five, England were 139-4, 160 runs from victory and Jonny Bairstow was on 43 off 48 balls, which is quick, but still within the
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Five Test wicketkeepers who quite often didn’t actually do any wicketkeeping
6 minute readIf you want to be highly regarded as a wicketkeeper-batter, one of the smartest things you can do is not actually keep wicket in a whole load of Test matches. At what point do you become a wicketkeeper? How frequently do you have to don pads and gloves and chunter
Continue readingThis is the way the county cricket season begins, not with a bang – and we’re happy with that
4 minute readNot every tournament needs an opening ceremony. We’ll let you in on a secret. We are not a fast waker-upper. Our daughter sometimes wanders into our room at an unconscionable hour and announces, “it’s morning,” in an indignant tone. It is impossible for us to convey the full horror of
Continue readingSeparate teams? What might a world of cricket format specialists actually look like?
9 minute readWay, way back in 2006, in our first year of writing this website, we described the international fixture list as being fatter than a TV-loving, chip-munching hippo with an abnormally slow metabolism. We probably should have left ourself with more room for manoeuvre because where does that leave us now?
Continue readingShane Warne: The greatest foe
6 minute readNo man is an island and no team is either. The team you support is only part of the equation. Opponents elevate a match. Opponents like Shane Warne. Many words have been spoken and written about Shane Warne in recent weeks; about why he was such an incredible leg-spinner; about
Continue readingTail-end tons: Who is the worst batter to have hit exactly one Test hundred?
8 minute readSometimes a tail-ender throws the bat and gets a few runs. A quick 20 or 30 or even a half century. But a Test hundred? That’s a bigger thing. Who is the worst batter to have achieved that feat? Many films generate a sense of tension by making the audience
Continue readingFast bowling: County cricket’s diesels and the unprepared Test batters they create
3 minute readIn the wake of England’s Ashes failings, there’s been a lot of talk about how the County Championship is played on pitches that encourage medium-pacers. Pitches are not the big problem. There was a good recent piece about county pitches by CricBuzz’s Rob Johnston. The overly-reduced version of that article
Continue readingKane Williamson: Lord Megachief of Gold 2020/2021
3 minute readOur annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the winners. Two things to note before we get into this. (1) We’re looking at a two-year timespan here after Lord Megachief Postponed
Continue reading17 of the best, worst and weirdest cricket moments of 2021
7 minute readHere is a bunch of stuff that happened in 2021. It is not an exhaustive list, because an exhaustive list chronicling the activities of multiple people across an entire year would take far longer than a year to read. It is just a selection of striking cricket moments from the
Continue readingIt’s time to talk about John Emburey inhaling an entire creme caramel in one go like some kind of pudding hoover
4 minute readThis article is about the time former England off-spinner John Emburey leant over a creme caramel and sucked the whole thing up without using his hands. We watched Sky Sports’ Spinwash ’93 documentary the other day. More accurately, we finished watching it. Apparently we watched the first 20-odd minutes over
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