4 minute readA seven-match T20 series wouldn’t ordinarily be an appealing prospect, but the sheer novelty of England playing Pakistan in Pakistan never really wore off. Does this mean that seven-match limited overs series are a legitimate and appealing thing to schedule? Yes, absolutely. Provided you haven’t toured one of the major
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2 minute readHaris Rauf looks tired. Not sleepy tired. The kind of tired where you have no patience for anything. The kind of tired where if you say the wrong thing he will very quickly go from quiet and reserved to absolutely going off his head at you in a highly terrifying
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6 minute readWe did this last year, reasoning that a collage of moments from England’s home season might somehow paint a broader picture of where they stand right now. It feels like it does a little bit – but then who knows what’ll come next. New dawns are widely regarded as immaculately
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2 minute readOllie Robinson doesn’t do his pointing upper-cut celebration every time he takes a wicket, but he does it often enough that it certainly feels like he does. Plenty of bowlers have had signature celebrations over the years – little sequences of actions they reflexively do in response to each dismissal.
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< 1 minute readIs this a thing now? Is the scheduled last Test of each summer forever destined to be played the following year? We’re jumping the gun here, but there’s at least some sort of a chance we’re going to have to run a Sim Series here, isn’t there? After first rain
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2 minute readAfter 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 readIt 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 readThat 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 readIt’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 readThe 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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