2 minute readThis starts off as a Twitter story, but stick with it because that’s merely the setting. The point we’re about to make has nothing to do with that. Firstly, let us just say that we don’t make predictions on Twitter. No-one really cares what we think and it’s too easy
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Murali Vijay’s straight bat against England’s ‘worthy’ bowling
< 1 minute readThere’s been a fair amount of whinging about the slowness and lowness of the pitch – and not without cause – but it strikes us that really good bowling attacks don’t happen across dead pitches very often. England’s is not a really good bowling attack. The point of Test cricket
Continue reading“People want to see runs”
< 1 minute readPeople are always saying this. It drives us mental. They say it like it’s a fact. Stuart Broad’s the latest. “I think Test wickets should be flat, no doubt, because the crowds want to come and see runs scored.” No we don’t. The most boring days we’ve ever seen have
Continue readingArticle about English county cricketer fails to dwell on his chances of playing for England
< 1 minute readThere is more than one thing to celebrate regarding Andrew Flintoff’s return to competitive cricket, but surely this is the greatest. A county match report which doesn’t go on and on about how some no-mark is ‘pushing for selection’ is a rare thing indeed. Okay, so in this instance the
Continue readingAndrew Strauss lets rip about Kevin Pietersen
< 1 minute readApparently Andrew Strauss has been caught calling Kevin Pietersen ‘the C-word’ during a commentary stint. He thought he was off-air, but they were actually still broadcasting in Australia. Being as this is Strauss, we’re presuming that the word used was ‘cad’. We’re quite taken aback by this. Our guess would
Continue readingWhich fast-medium all-rounders should England pick?
< 1 minute readShould they pick the batsman who bowls slippery fast-medium (Ben Stokes), the fast-medium bowler who can bat (Chris Jordan), the faster fast-medium bowler who can bat (Liam Plunkett) or the fast-medium bowler who really can bat (Chris Woakes)? All are good players, but even an eskimo may from time to
Continue readingAlastair Cook v Shane Warne – who’s the bigger idiot?
< 1 minute readWill Alastair Cook learn his lesson? Most people know that it’s incredibly unwise for the England captain to demand that critics be less critical. But not Cook, apparently. He recently said that “something needs to be done” about Shane Warne’s relentless criticism of his captaincy. The headline of Warne’s latest
Continue readingFatigue is cumulative – so bowl Moeen Ali
2 minute readSorry that we keep harping on about that period of play when England got caught in fast-medium purgatory, but it really was when the game got away from England. A number of factors conspired to create the horror. As well as poor bowling and limp captaincy, tiredness played a part.
Continue readingMoeen Ali and Jimmy Anderson – kings in defeat
2 minute readThe final pole was taken with just a cherry to spare. But just as a snatched draw wouldn’t have erased England’s shoddy cricket from the previous day, so falling short shouldn’t negate the efforts of Moeen Ali and Jimmy Anderson. Jimmy was basically in tears when Mike Atherton tried to
Continue readingAngelo Mathews pulls off skin and something special
< 1 minute readJust because it’s only a two-Test series, it doesn’t mean you’re playing Bangladesh. This Sri Lanka side is a good one. If anything, it’s their achievements that are being devalued by the quality of the opposition. But they can only beat what’s put in front of them. In this Test,
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