3 minute readWhat 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
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Kevin Pietersen and the lonely ends of the spectra
2 minute readThe 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 readEngland 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
Continue readingEngland mistakes that we too would have made
2 minute readBeing as so many people seem to have very clear ideas about what England did wrong in the West Indies, we thought it might be nice to list some of the mistakes that England made that we too would have made – a kind of wilful spurning of hindsight, if
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Jonathan Trott: the totem who knew his mind
4 minute readThis article was first published on the All Out Cricket website in May 2015, but the All Out Cricket website no longer exists so we’re republishing it here. Jonathan Trott was never a cash-in player. He was never the guy who exploited tired bowling. He never stood on anyone else’s
Continue readingJonathan Trott – the king of relentlessness finally relents
< 1 minute readOur proper Jonathan Trott retirement piece is over on All Out Cricket. Other than that, here are two old posts which sum up different aspects of a top, top player. The first focuses on the sheer relentlessness of the man – surely his defining quality. If we have a happier
Continue readingWhy wasn’t Captain Hindsight made England coach for this series?
3 minute readWe can’t understand it. It seems such an obvious solution. Captain Hindsight wouldn’t have made all the obvious mistakes that Peter Moores made. Maybe England’s loss would have been embarrassing if the opposition had been as mediocre as they were infamously branded, but this West Indies side seemed to us
Continue readingTest action constriction and the case for a James Anderson ghola
< 1 minute readWickets advance a Test match. Yesterday therefore had all the meaningful action of two days’ cricket – 18 wickets – constricted into one. Jerome Taylor kicked things off, but it was Jimmy Anderson who enjoyed himself to the full with six wickets for 42 runs off 12.4 overs. In the
Continue readingAlastair Cook hasn’t made a hundred since yesterday
< 1 minute readRestart the clock. This may have been all of 10 runs more than he made just a handful of Tests ago, but it rewrites a tired script. Suddenly people can’t fall back on ‘hasn’t made a hundred since…’ and so they’re instead forced to look at the facts. Those facts
Continue readingWhen is an England squad not an England squad?
2 minute readThis is probably the weirdest England squad we can remember. It’s not quite a B-team, but nor is it a real A-Team. It’s a 2010 cinematic rehash A-Team. Some of the names are about as familiar as that of Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson as well (the guy who was passed off
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