2 minute read How much is it that England’s batsmen can’t play spin very well and how much is it that they can’t chase big totals? It’s probably a bit of both. It’s probably that one is compounded by the other. It’s fairly self-evident that bigger totals are harder to chase, but they
Continue readingCategory: England
The England Test squad for the Test tour of India is actually quite interesting
2 minute read “Root or Compton? Let’s have both and, er, James Taylor can go elsewhere to make room. He didn’t do much right or wrong, so maybe no-one will notice that he’s gone.” Root and Compton. It’s nice to see a 21-year-old and a 29-year-old both being selected for the first time
Continue readingICC World Twenty20 format
< 1 minute read We may be cynical and world-weary, but we’ve always rather enjoyed the World Twenty20. By and large we’re a fan of grey, but in some contexts you can’t beat a bit of black and white brutality and the tournament provides just a little of that. We’re not talking about rogue
Continue readingJos Buttler dismantles Wayne Parnell
< 1 minute read Wayne Parnell went for 37 off two overs yesterday. He conceded five in the first. In the second, Jos Buttler took him apart as if he were an old, rotten shed which had tried to have sex with his daughter. We’re not exactly sure how a shed would go about
Continue readingWhat are England and South Africa playing for tonight?
< 1 minute read Are they playing for pride, honour, a trophy? No! They’re playing for momentum. Going into the Twenty20 World Cup with this batting line-up, England will need as much momentum as they can get, because it rather feels like they’re about to roll into a brick wall rather than a little
Continue readingWhy we love Matt Prior
< 1 minute read Rob Smyth is waxing lyrical about Matt Prior in The Spin, this week. We’re inclined to agree with him and not just because of Prior’s magnificent beard and love of cycling. Last week, we had a conversation with someone who has had a certain amount of contact with pretty much
Continue readingNo more one-day internationals in 2012
< 1 minute read England have thrived since changes to one-day internationals led to lower totals. There – that’s our slightly premature England v South Africa series review done and dusted. Now let’s move onto an odd fact: Wednesday’s match will be the final 50-over international of the year involving any nation. Okay, so
Continue readingEngland’s next opening batsman
< 1 minute read We’d go for Nick Compton. He was born in Durban, so it would help Malcolm Conn be hilarious. Conn’s definitely a man abiding by our ‘repeat until funny’ rule when making jokes about England cricketers born in South Africa. He’s not got there yet. Another reason to go for Compton
Continue readingFeline reaction to Andrew Strauss’s retirement from cricket
< 1 minute read In the highly unlikely event that we’ve picked up a new reader in the last year, we should say that we have a feature on this website entitled animals being conspicuously indifferent to cricket. Lemon Bella’s cats, StraussCat and Meowcus Trescattick, have appeared on several occasions and we’re honoured to
Continue readingReporting on Strauss and Pietersen
2 minute read It’s interesting that so many people took yesterday’s post at face value. We’ll come clean: it is not our actual stance on the Pietersen issue. There are bits of it we might agree with to some extent, but for the most part it’s an extreme position we adopted in order
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