< 1 minute readYou need opening batsmen, you need a wicketkeeper, you need a spinner. You don’t always need a guy who looks like a cartoon baker. That’s not to say that such a person isn’t of value though. Sometimes the captain will look round the field and think to himself: ‘Oh for
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Zaheer Khan and James Anderson
2 minute readWe’re all pretty lucky, you know. For the next few weeks, we’re going to get Zaheer Khan one innings and then James Anderson the next. It’s like our metabolism has suddenly allowed us a curry-pizza-curry-pizza diet. No muesli. What follows isn’t really meant to be a comparison. It’s more about
Continue readingAlastair Cook still proving people wrong
< 1 minute readNo comments as yet on our latest Cricinfo article. We predict that at least one of the first ten will be about how Alastair Cook isn’t actually all that good and how Virender Sehwag’s better. The other nine will be asking whether the article is supposed to be funny or
Continue readingEngland’s one-day opening batsmen might stay the same
< 1 minute readFor us, this is the biggest positive to have come out of England’s one-day series win against Sri Lanka. In one-day cricket, your opening batsmen are pretty much your most important players and England have rarely had a decent, settled partnership. The run-up to the last World Cup was pretty
Continue readingAlastair Cook broadens his range
< 1 minute readMany of you will say Alastair Cook proved us wrong by hitting 95 off 75 balls against Sri Lanka. Our point was actually that you shouldn’t open with an anchor in one-day cricket. We say that your sensible batsman, your banker, should come in at three or four. Wrong pigeonhole?
Continue readingThe anchor role in one-day cricket
2 minute readThis isn’t repeat until funny. This is repeat because you haven’t said it in a while and people seem to be missing something pretty obvious about one-day cricket – English people mostly. It’s about anchors and openers. A batsman’s ‘range’ No batsman likes to be stereotyped, but let’s be honest,
Continue readingScoring enough runs in one-day cricket and defending not quite enough runs
< 1 minute readIdeally, a one-day side should be able to do both of those things. England can do neither. They’re not a hundred million miles away from competence, but combine both those shortcomings and you’ll struggle to win many matches. We’re starting to think that it’s nothing to do with players, tactics,
Continue readingPredictable scheduling of Test matches
2 minute readIf 922 people turn up for a day at a Test match when you’re offering free entry, you’re going to struggle to raise the £2.5m you bid for the match in question. Dark skies poison people’s enthusiasm for watching cricket, but even so, very few tickets for this year’s Cardiff
Continue readingFive-Test series between England and India
< 1 minute readHave we updated the site today? No. Did we forget? Yes. Will this be one of our all-time greatest updates? Definitely not. India and England will play five-Test series in 2014 and 2018. That’s good, isn’t it? Five-Test series allow for a proper narrative to develop. The term ‘five-Test series’
Continue readingAlastair Cook as a one-day opener
< 1 minute readDunno. Give him a chance? The best players are adaptable, but we can’t shake the feeling that even if Alastair Cook can survive as a one-day batsman, he isn’t an opener. Batsmen sometimes get branded as being ‘openers’ in England, but one-day opening is different. Successful one-day openers generally come
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