4 minute read“It could be really entertaining, like that 2005 series, which is what made me fall in love with cricket. The prospect of that is really exciting.” – Ollie Pope, February 2023. Bless him, he’s excited. He’s also completely wrong. The fundamental mistake that Ollie Pope has made here is a
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3 minute readA year ago, during the 50-over tournament, we headlined our semi-finals preview piece, Who will lose to Australia in the World Cup final? Even if it’s a different format, it’s tempting to take the same attitude now. But if there’s one thing we’re sure of, it’s that life isn’t an
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2 minute readIt must be getting on for 10 years now that touring Test teams have been arriving in India expecting to have to combat R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja on pitches that will more than likely turn a bit. No-one’s really worked it out yet. 10 years, man! 10 years! And
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3 minute readMarnus Labuschagne recently described facing R Ashwin as being “like a chess game”. It was an interesting choice of words as actual chess could prove to be the off-spinner’s greatest weakness. Labuschagne was alluding to that to and fro of decision-making between himself and a thoughtful bowler like Ashwin who
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2 minute readMountains crop up a lot in metaphors. They’re forever being scaled, climbed or conquered. Steve Smith has come up with his own way to reach the summit of the mountain that is a Test tour of India though. “If we are able to topple that mountain, that’d be huge,” he
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2 minute read“Cricket Australia basically said to us, ‘Okay, what can we kinda do to make your time in hotels for the next month better? So the boys just took it to the next level” – Pat Cummins The latest series of The Test outlines all the various toys and gizmos the
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2 minute readMop-up of the day is a thing we do when we can’t really be bothered writing more than a sentence or two about a bunch of different things. Sometimes we end up writing extra sentences though because it looks weird if the opening sentence, in bold, is immediately followed by
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3 minute readSay what you like about tax-dodging symbol of the horrors of modern global commerce, Amazon, it knows how to promote a documentary series about the Australia Test cricket team. Series one of Amazon Prime’s The Test was notable for footage of Justin Langer kicking a bin over, among other things.
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2 minute readWe previewed the Boxing Day Tests. We may as well take a look at what happened in them. Australia v South Africa Signs of an upturn for South Africa, who finally passed 200 for the first time in many attempts. Their second innings 204 all out was enough to secure
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< 1 minute readSeam bowler Brendan Doggett top scored for Sydney Thunder today after hitting the only ball he faced which didn’t dismiss him for four runs. The Thunder didn’t even bat long enough for extras to outscore him. All out for 15. Not a great effort. Bad enough, surely, to warrant use
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