2 minute readJimmy Neesham made two excellent and contrasting contributions to New Zealand’s T20 World Cup semi-final win over England. Firstly, he successfully steered the match round the sharpest of corners late in his team’s run-chase. Secondly, he totally neglected to move a muscle come the winning moment. It’s hard to pick
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< 1 minute readEngland could shuffle their team in all sorts of different ways to cover for the absence of Jason Roy. The only thing we can be certain of is that no matter who opens, it will mean Moeen Ali being asked to do something different. This is, in fact, not strictly
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5 minute readEngland played a bunch of cricket matches in the summer of 2021. We’ve got this mad idea that if we pull together a load of the moments that caught our attention, it will somehow give a sense of what the entire season was about. Let’s see, shall we? So much
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3 minute readIt’s always been the case that some tours have been easier to cancel than others. Assorted pressures mean cancellations are coming thicker and faster at the minute. What are the implications of this? Earlier this month, we wrote that the threshold for binning the Old Trafford Test was lower than
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4 minute readPiss off golf. It is a phenomenon we will never be able to wrap our head around. Cricketers liking and talking about golf. No offence to golf – which is a perfectly decent sport if you want to fake-befriend late-middle-aged men who have the power to give you a promotion
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6 minute read2019 Cricket World Cup final, England v New Zealand Cricket is at its very purest and best when it’s completely village; when the bowlers are batting and people are being run-out and everyone has to keep checking the laws and playing regulations because they don’t have the faintest idea what’s
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3 minute readWhere did we get this idea that every trophy has to be a lab experiment, measuring and weighing every facet of excellence? In the immediate aftermath of defeat, Virat Kohli said that in future the World Test Championship final, “has to be a test of character over three Tests.” Beaten
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< 1 minute readIt’s not a complicated thing. When you win a Test match, you’ve conquered not just the opposition but also time. This makes Test wins a bigger deal. It’s not enough to be better than the other team to win a Test match. You have to be better than them to
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< 1 minute readA lot of things happen over the course of a Test match – even one that barely scrapes into a fourth day. But you look at an innings where Mark Wood top scored and that feels like the main thing. That’s the thing that sums the match up, isn’t it?
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4 minute readWe’re pretty sure we know how this Test will be remembered. The England team for the first Test averaged less than 273, so it didn’t seem unreasonable that they gave up trying to chase that on the final day against a really very good and balanced bowling attack. Others disagree,
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