< 1 minute readWe haven’t seen any of this Sri Lanka v Australia Test. It’s on Eurosport 2 which stopped working a couple of months ago. The prospect of speaking to BT to try and get the channel working again led us to conclude that it is best left unfixed. We have apparently
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What is a format-spanning points system for?
3 minute readLast week we asked whether you would care if the Ashes included limited overs matches. This was slightly mischievous on our part because while the series could in theory be affected by the mooted system which would see points accrued across formats and an overall winner recognised, the truth is
Continue readingWould you care if the Ashes included limited overs matches?
3 minute readBen Stokes would. Reacting to plans to implement a points system spanning the formats for cricket tours, he said: “I think it would be rubbish. They’ve changed a lot of things, but Ashes is Ashes, it’s a massive series for England and Australia and I don’t see why it should
Continue readingEither India or Australia will be/have been knocked out – but who could have predicted the outcome (and when)
2 minute readWe changed what time this site’s daily email went out recently. We can’t be bothered checking what time range we set it to and we also can’t be bothered working out what impact British Summer Time will have. As such, this post is a preview of the India v Australia
Continue readingMatthew Hayden still loves the word ‘process’
< 1 minute readWe’ve tried to give up writing about Matthew Hayden’s habit of talking a load of incomprehensible bollocks, but as the man himself says in a recent interview on Cricinfo: “Sometimes things are just meant to be, aren’t they? You just have to give in to the higher forces and say,
Continue readingMop-up of the day – Hello and goodbye and are you leaving?
< 1 minute readBuoyed by a first innings display in which he took six for a million, Neil Wagner persisted with his innovative attritional shock tactics in the second. He took 1-60. It’s worth noting that Wagner produced this display despite a broken hand. More accurately, he produced this display despite a broken
Continue readingWhile Neil Wagner might occasionally let you down, he does frequently pick up a few wickets from a long and determined spell when no-one else is really making any inroads
< 1 minute readAs Australia’s batsmen dominated New Zealand’s bowlers, there was only one thing left to do: call for Neil Wagner and ask him to bowl 25 overs of short-pitched bowling. Neil Wagner isn’t perfect, but if you’re looking for donkey work strike bowling (can that be a thing?) then he’s your
Continue readingBrendon McCullum remains very much himself
2 minute readBelieve it or not, batting with positive intent isn’t actually a new invention. In the hundred-and-odd years of Test cricket, people did actually try it from time to time before now. Mostly they got out. New Zealand were heavily beaten in the first Test against Australia and when Brendon McCullum
Continue readingShivnarine Chanderpaul’s take on specific training
< 1 minute readDavid Warner said that back in 2012, he saw Shivnarine Chanderpaul put in a six-hour shift against the bowling machine. “I said ‘This is ridiculous, how can you do this?’ and he said: ‘If you’re going to bat for six hours in a game you might as well practise it.’”
Continue readingBetter wicketkeeping is one of the components rattling around in Australia’s World Cup bag o’ bits
< 1 minute readAustralia have gone a bit England with their T20 World Cup preparations. Their long-term planning has climaxed with a 15-man squad where a third of the players haven’t even played a T20 international. Impressive stuff. They’re clearly of a mind that having the right components is of more importance than
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