2 minute read After one innings victory apiece, the third and final Test between England and South Africa will surely end up either a high-scoring draw or a low-scoring tie. England’s new number five, Harry Brook, would presumably prefer the former as all things being equal that increases the chances he’ll make a
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2 minute read It was coming. It’s happened. England have named their T20 World Cup squad and they’ve dropped Jason Roy. In keeping with this website’s policy of actively spurning all the audience-attracting potential of writing about a topic when it’s “hot,” we said pretty much all we want to say about this
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< 1 minute read That feels the most likely outcome here. You pick Ollie Robinson and generally something goes wrong with him. This time around our money’s on – ooh, let’s see – auto-brewery syndrome. To whisk through Robinson’s last few months once again, it’s gone back spasm, back spasm, tooth infection, food poisoning,
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2 minute read It’s good to be ambitious and open minded and not hidebound by the past. It’s maybe not quite so smart to talk about how you’re going to rewrite how Test cricket is played – particularly if you’re England. Ben Stokes has mostly spoken well since he took on the captaincy,
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2 minute read The scorecard says Dean Elgar was bowled by James Anderson. The scorecard is keeping a lot of important detail to itself there. To recap what happened, Anderson hit Elgar on the thigh, the ball bounced back towards the bowler, only for Elgar to inadvertently elbow it backwards again. The ball
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2 minute read It’s the fun question that now launches all series and tournaments: “Why should I care about this?” When there’s wall-to-wall cricket, nothing can be taken for granted – these days you have to take the time to work out which matches actually matter. No matter how seriously a team says
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5 minute read Jason Roy isn’t at his best. He’s not even in a place where he can try and bat at his best. How can a white ball specialist like him get back into good batting form these days? Let’s start in the obvious place with a story about a speed skater.
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2 minute read We’ve been here before. Australia are still the team that wins everything – this time gold at the Commonwealth Games. As far as on-the-nose victory anthems go, We Are The Champions by Queen still rules the roost. Comedy writer/actor Stephen Merchant used to talk about trying to write a rival
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3 minute read Did England’s white ball schedule get ahead of you this month? It got away from us. It got away from England too. First, the bare bones of it: England lost both the T20 and ODI series 2-1 to India, drew the ODI series against South Africa 1-1 and then lost
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2 minute read ‘Managing’ means two things. It means taking decisions and directing matters so that everything hopefully progresses more smoothly. It also means bumbling through in the face of various problems in the vague hope you’ll just get through it all somehow. Tired of the second approach, Ben Stokes has switched to
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