< 1 minute read If we were to ask, ‘who has been your favourite England Test opener since Andrew Strauss retired?’ the answer is obvious. If you say anyone other than Alastair Cook, you are either (a) a contrarian hipster (b) not an England supporter or (c) mental. That’s an easy one. A far
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What the hell is up with Hasan Ali’s hand?
< 1 minute read We honestly haven’t got much left to say about England’s batting, so let’s instead turn our attention to Hasan Ali’s hand and whatever the hell is up with it. Here’s Hasan Ali’s hand midway through delivering the (apparently) fiendishly tempting wide one that did for Joe Root. Strapping is a
Continue readingWhat proportion of Mohammad Amir will play the Tests against England?
3 minute read We were a tremendously big fan of Mohammad Amir even back when he was called Mohammad Aamer. Things have not always been smooth since then. There have been blips. They say that prison changes a man. We ourself have never been incarcerated. One time we accidentally ran a red light
Continue readingThe Hundred is not going to be a big deal, people aren’t going to talk about it and it won’t attract a new audience
2 minute read Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer. After that, build a whole stupid thing around the stupid answer and then pin all of your hopes for the survival of your sport on how well the stupid thing fares. The ECB are going to launch this 100-ball competition and they
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Is it right that Jos Buttler won a Test spot without playing first-class cricket?
2 minute read Let’s take a look at how Test teams are picked and whether runs in other formats are relevant. We’ll begin with a quick bit of background. A quick bit of background Doing well at one-day cricket for England used to be a common way of getting into the Test team.
Continue readingAre you in The Wisden Cricket Weekly Gang?
2 minute read Do you mind if we tell you a barely relevant story? If you do mind, you’re probably reading the wrong website. We’re very confident that the pure hilariousness of this tale cannot possibly be conveyed without first-person experience of the person involved, but we’re going to tell you anyway because
Continue readingMark Wood’s IPL experience with Chennai Super Kings has helped him make his choices – but where will he go next?
2 minute read You may remember that earlier in the year, we wrote about the weighted, weighty decisions faced by Mark Wood this season. Wood’s long format career has been in the balance of late. An IPL contract seemed likely to keep him out of all early season first-class cricket and a consequence
Continue reading“The other 10 balls will add a fresh tactical dimension”
2 minute read Of all the very many sizeable questions that arise from the ECB’s plan to introduce a new 100-ball format to cricket, the biggest one is surely this: how did they decide who had to have the “fresh tactical dimension” quote attributed to them? To quickly bring you up to
Continue readingIs Ed Smith in or out of a job?
2 minute read The photo on the homepage of Ed Smith’s website is worth a look. It is from an actual photo shoot. We haven’t exactly done extensive research on this, but booking a photo shoot to get some pictures of yourself would seem to us to be quite an unusual thing for
Continue readingEngland need a short-pitched specialist like Neil Wagner
< 1 minute read Asking someone to bowl with the old ball is not the same as picking someone who has built their career around bowling with the old ball. Asking someone to bowl short is not the same as picking someone who has built their entire career around bowling short. Being tall does
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