3 minute readThere is an awful lot of cricket in any given year. Too much to focus on really. We’ve cut away the fat and picked out the big fixtures that we’re going to try and have more than half an eye on in the rest of 2022. You will disagree with
Continue readingCategory: England
England have a-whole-nother Test match and now we know how things work
< 1 minute readWhen England and Australia finished their Test match in January, there were no further women’s Test matches on any confirmed schedule, anywhere, for any nation. That one was officially a “doozy” though – perhaps the best international red ball fixture in the last 12 months or more – so now
Continue readingMark Wood’s off season
4 minute readEverything’s going right for Mark Wood right now – which also means that everything is already starting to go wrong. Mark Wood’s become a central part of England’s Test team, which is great. And he’s just got himself another IPL contract, which is also great. Throw in his obligations with
Continue readingWhy we’re confidently labelling Alex Lees “not evil”
3 minute readIn any other England Test squad, a brand new opener would be the big story. From what little we know about alphabet-straddling AZ Lees, we hope he does well. Alex Lees was one of the last batch of players we named as ‘county cricketers to watch’ before we finally sacked
Continue readingThe soft binning of Anderson and Broad
2 minute readJames Anderson and Stuart Broad have been dropped from England’s Test squad. They’re not being rested. There’s no mention of that. They’re out. But they also might come back. It’s a soft binning. There is more than one way to dispose of something you no longer want. There’s the unequivocal
Continue readingAs England sack their coach, here’s the take none of you want
4 minute readAfter sacking their director of men’s cricket, Ashley Giles, earlier in the week, England have now sacked head coach Chris Silverwood too. Who will follow him? If you have separate captains for different formats, you probably need separate coaches too. In the early days of this website, we had a
Continue readingThe Test match when no-one wanted to be on top (except maybe Heather Knight)
2 minute readThere aren’t many women’s Test matches at all. This means that the worst thing to produce when there is one would be a one-sided boreathon. The 2022 Ashes Test was most definitely not that. It served up almost as many plot twists as Wild Things (a film that averages one
Continue readingPaul Collingwood deserves a medal for what he said about England’s mad fixture list
4 minute readIf there is one great thing the pandemic may have achieved for cricket, it is making the international game completely and utterly unsustainable. “You are burnt out from the start,” said Paul Collingwood this week, in reference to England’s ill-fated Ashes tour hot on the heels of the T20 World
Continue readingAs another Ashes series gets underway, please tell us we aren’t in “oh shit” territory again already
2 minute readIt’s the Ashes again. Australia won again. Oh shit? If we have a recent sports writing regret, it’s that we only stumbled across the terms MAshes and WAshes after the men’s series had already finished. We very much like this terminology. We wish we’d already started using it. Because it’s
Continue readingIt’s worth reminding yourself that Mitchell Starc really does have an awful lot going for him
2 minute readEngland’s batting average in this series was the lowest in an Ashes series since 1890. Mitchell Starc opened the bowling against them in all five Tests, yet it doesn’t feel like he’ll get his fair share of the credit. We often think this about Starc. Is that fair? A certain
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