< 1 minute read He’s called Nigel or something. We’re not sure. We haven’t really been paying attention. From what we can tell, he’s been coaching a club in South Wales and he once appeared in an episode of Knight Rider. He seems well qualified. Jason Gillespie had of course been the favourite for
Continue readingCategory: England
Like that dumpling from the Caribbean place last week, this match may well take a day or two to digest
< 1 minute read Imagine going back in time and trying to tell cynical, world-weary you from a week ago about this match. “England were 30-4 inside the first hour of day one,” you’d say. “Yeah, that seems about right,” Earlier You would reply. “And they then conceded 523 in New Zealand’s first innings,”
Continue readingBen Stokes: Brutal Deluxe
2 minute read There are times for thoughtful analysis and there are times for giddy enthusiasm. Today is clearly the latter. At the peak of his powers, if you said the name ‘Flintoff’ to someone during a match with the right look in your eye, that person would immediately drop whatever they were
Continue readingNew Zealand have something atop their spine
< 1 minute read Looks like we’re gonna need a bigger skull. A year ago we wrote about how New Zealand’s first few vertebrae – the batsmen at three, four, five and six – needed to be (metaphorically) full of brainy gloop to make up for shortcomings at the top. After a 148-run opening
Continue readingJoe Root hasn’t made a hundred in England for almost a year
2 minute read We’re thinking about trying to get more into selective use of statistics. It seems to be a big thing in cricket, but we’re not off to a great start. Truth is it’s barely been nine months since Joe Root last made a hundred in England. Actually, we didn’t specify Test
Continue readingEngland captain, coach and director – how are the roles defined?
< 1 minute read Too many cooks? Too many Cooks? Who’s responsible for what in this new England team hierarchy? We’ve just spent half an hour writing and rewriting a paragraph trying to explain how we think things are going to work. Clearly, we have no idea. We came up with some sort of
Continue readingThe week in politics
2 minute read Like a tired bear in winter, let’s try and put this to bed for a few days. Maybe it’ll have to get up again at some point next week to go for a wee, but we’re kind of hoping that we can concentrate on the New Zealand series from now
Continue readingThe ECB takes aim at its prosthetic foot
3 minute read What may eventually prove to be Kevin Pietersen’s final six scoring strokes in first-class cricket were, in order, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. At that point, there was nowhere left to go. A friend of ours was referred to a heart specialist once. As he sat in the
Continue readingKevin Pietersen and the lonely ends of the spectra
2 minute read The Kevin Pietersen saga is often described as a soap opera. This is quite accurate because the defining feature of a soap opera is that IT NEVER ENDS. Okay, Crossroads and Eldorado did, but you get what we’re saying. For the most part they just rumble on, day after day,
Continue readingAnother day, another long-term plan
< 1 minute read England have sacked their coach; the coach they hired about a year ago with a view to rebuilding the side in time for the Ashes series which starts in about 45 minutes’ time. We’re increasingly wondering whether they should just scrap long-term plans in favour of short-termism. It seems a
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