< 1 minute readGraham Manou finished his career with a first-class batting average of 25.49. He played one Test for Australia. That Test was the third of the 2009 Ashes series, a heavily rain-affected draw that never really delivered tension at any point. Maybe there was a soupcon when Australia were 52-2 in
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6 minute readFast bowlers aren’t often captains. They’re more likely to get injured. They’re more likely to be tired and bad-tempered in the field. There’s always the temptation to over- or under-bowl themselves. But these things aren’t insurmountable. Whenever a Test captaincy vacancy opens up, the discussion begins. Who are the options?
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< 1 minute readPad Haddin. Brad Paddin. Pad Had-a-Ball-In. There may or may not be a joke in there, but even if there is, there’s one thing we can be sure of: it is not a good one. We refer, of course, to one of the great moments of the 2009 Ashes. One
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< 1 minute readWorld cricket’s longest-serving stand-in captain took heroic and selfless steps to avert a tragedy today. Increasingly concerned that Steve Smith might never again captain Australia, Tim Paine hit upon the idea of sexting someone four years ago – a simple move that has allowed him to immediately resign. Paine was
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2 minute readWe’re doing another series of The Ridiculous Ashes, the podcast we do with Dan Liebke in which we revisit the funnier moments of historic Ashes series and decide which side made the more significant comedy contribution. A few people have previously been put off by the fact that Series 1
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2 minute readIt’s now less than a year until the final of the 2022 T20 World Cup. Let’s take a look at how some of the teams are shaping up with just a handful of matches left for fine-tuning. The world is unanimously agreed that the 2022 edition will be the first
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2 minute read“It will be like two balls of mercury on the one plate,” according to Matthew Hayden. Regular readers of this website will know that Hayden is currently serving as Pakistan’s batting coach and principle guff-talker. Justin Langer is of course Australia’s current head coach and principle guff-talker. Way back when,
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3 minute readSometimes it’s Monday morning and the latest cricket news is… not excellent. So let’s busy ourselves with some good old-fashioned gloating instead. You may have noticed that England beat Australia on Saturday. And then carried on beating them. There were many highlights, several of which did not involve the camera
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2 minute readOne of the defining qualities of Matthew Hayden’s guff-talking is his habit of throwing in a load of additional words that add precisely nothing to what he is trying to say. We’re going to talk to you about three recent examples. Last time around – back when Hayden first took
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2 minute readHe couldn’t leave it at mere “accuracy,” could he? Chris Silverwood had to talk up the England bowling attack’s “supreme accuracy” when announcing the 2021-22 Ashes squad. “Here you go, everyone. Each of you take a stick. You’ll need these to beat us with in a couple of months’ time.”
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