2 minute read England ended this Ashes series much as they’d begun – bowled out for sod all. There’s been no progress. If anything, they’ve looked worse and worse as time has gone on. It actually feels like they’ve refined bad batting, settling on an approach which guarantees a low score every time.
Continue readingCategory: England
Giving up on the old boys
2 minute read There’s a lot of talk of it being the end of an era for England; how many of the familiar faces won’t be around for the next Ashes in 2015. It’s not surprising many of us want to throw all our old toys away and buy new ones, but you
Continue readingDay of the gnarl-dog
< 1 minute read There is a chance that James Anderson isn’t the nightwatchman, you realise. He might be the new number three. But while the batting may have changed considerably, life’s the same for England in the field. Today’s backdrop for the Brad Haddin counterattack was 97-5. We all know the drill by
Continue readingShuffling bread
2 minute read Have we all made realistic New Year’s resolutions? No more drinking on Wednesdays? One takeaway a week, but you won’t deliberately order enough for breakfast the next morning as well? Or maybe you’ve resolved to stop playing Australia quite so frequently. Vivisection’s tempting, but let’s not reach for the scalpel
Continue readingBeing overtaken in a 10-Test series
2 minute read You’ve got to pace yourself. Australia started this 10-Test series so woefully that they could only ever improve. In hindsight, that was a masterstroke. It’s tempting to talk about momentum, but we’ll stick to a different M-word – motivation. Nothing keeps you going like knowing that you’re gaining on someone.
Continue readingReverse swing?
< 1 minute read Yeah? Maybe? 20-odd overs onwards? Bit of something? Yeah? It’s been a low scoring match; it’s been hard to score; so a bit of movement might make the run chase a bit tense? Yeah? It’s hard to appear entirely positive when you’re using so many question marks.
Continue reading“They started it”
< 1 minute read Are England and Australia ever going to comprehend the concept of hubris? Australia finished day one shushing the Barmy Army. Have they not been paying attention to the way things have worked this year? They finished day two on 164-9. Sportsmen aren’t exactly shot-through with dignity, but the Ashes seems
Continue readingFinding food in an Astramax van
< 1 minute read For a team whose coach mocks England for having a boring approach to the game, Australia are hypocritically wedded to maidens. As the series wears on, it’s clear that Mitchell Johnson is just a go-faster stripe on an Astramax van. He distracts us, gains our attention, but this bowling attack
Continue readingGraeme Swann was more than a quarter of an attack
3 minute read Graeme Swann’s retirement seems somehow emblematic of England’s current state. It sounds like he’s been aware of reduced efficacy for a while now, but could put it to the back of his mind so long as England were winning. Now they’re losing and the ensuing clarity has shunted a memorable
Continue readingSomething a cricketer shouldn’t say on Twitter
2 minute read We’ve done our usual Twitter thing for Cricinfo, but you’ll notice we haven’t mentioned Ryan Harris and his Al Swearengen style whinge about not being let into some casino. Nor have we mentioned Graeme Swann. If you don’t already know, Swann’s receiving criticism for likening England’s Ashes defeat to being
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