2 minute readTymal Mills has been signed by Royal Challengers Bangalore for £1.4m. In response, many have felt inclined to ask what Ian Botham, Viv Richards or Ian Austin might have gone for. This seems to us to be somewhat missing the point. In the UK, the phrase ‘Twenty20 specialist’ still has
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A bit of advice for Joe Root
< 1 minute readIf there’s one thing the England captain generally lacks, it’s advice from random members of the public. Fortunately for Joe Root, we are prepared to step in and fill that void. It’s a little-known fact that our critically-acclaimed Club Captain’s Handbook for All Out Cricket was originally penned as a
Continue readingWere Alastair Cook (and his family) ‘let out to dry’ by the ECB?
2 minute readAlastair Cook has said that the ECB “kind of let me out to dry a little bit” over Kevin Pietersen’s sacking and the ensuing brouhaha. Being ‘let out to dry’ makes him sound like a cat who’s mistaken bubble bath foam for solid land and now needs the back door
Continue readingEoin Morgan to be Ireland Test captain?
< 1 minute read“Even more than making it in Twenty20 or 50‑over cricket my real ambition has been to become a Test player,” said Eoin Morgan when England first gave him a shot at the five-day stuff. After 16 Tests and two hundreds, it seems highly unlikely they’ll give him another go, but
Continue readingAlastair Cook finally works out that he doesn’t much like being England captain
2 minute readAfter four-and-a-half years and 59 Test matches, Alastair Cook has finally thought to himself: “Wait a minute, this is a rubbish a job and I don’t actually have to do it.” It sometimes seems like every England captain’s career is simply a long, slow deduction that the honour and prestige
Continue readingMS Dhoni is officially capable of scoring a fifty in a T20 international
< 1 minute readAh, bless. He’d made a few in club cricket, but this was MS Dhoni’s first fifty in T20 internationals. Hopefully this is a first step towards a successful career on the big stage. Speaking after the game, Dhoni may or may not have said: “This was my first fifty in
Continue readingEngland will pray for nip or tail at the Champions Trophy
2 minute readThe early stages of England’s one-day cricket revolution saw the team transform from one that scored about 250 on average to one that score about 250 on average. The difference was in the range. They went from making 240-260 and losing every game to making 100-400 and winning half the
Continue readingWhy waste your best bowler in the final over?
< 1 minute readThe idea that England might try and bounce out Virat Kohli proved as wide of the mark as a Devon Malcolm loosener. They decided to pepper him with half-volleys instead. And it worked. They adopted a similar method against Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni, occasionally mixing things up with a
Continue readingHas Alastair Cook stood down as England captain yet?
< 1 minute readOnly we’ll have to get something up about it pretty darn sharpish if he does. Our readers will doubtless have much to say about such a development. Maybe we could publish some sort of ‘holding post’ instead, floating the possibility that Cook might stand down without actually stating that this
Continue readingThe two ways of looking at Alastair Cook’s captaincy
2 minute readThere are two ways of looking upon the England captaincy. You can see it as an important position where the incumbent can have a major positive influence on how the side performs, or you can see it as one more thing that could go horribly wrong. Rated according to the
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