< 1 minute readThat’s our way of saying they were Wooded. We wrote about the benefits of having Adil Rashid in your side a couple of days ago. Mark Wood offers something similar. Remember how the middle over used to be? It was like the batsmen saw everything in high-definition and everything moved
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England are taking swigs of Adil Rashid again and it’s made them a better team
2 minute readEngland are also through to the semi-finals. A handful of percussive mid-sized innings and some hearty bowling were enough to dispatch New Zealand. Jason Roy was still there, continuing his ill-advised experiments with flips and flicks, and Adil Rashid was back. England’s template was therefore pretty much back in place
Continue readingEngland go with a bit of right-arm fast-medium
2 minute read‘Will four right-arm fast-medium bowlers be sufficient?’ England apparently asked themselves before the opening match of the ICC Champions Trophy. ‘No, better make it five,” they concluded, for reasons that were clear to no-one. It was very odd. One of the few things we said about England’s likely strategy for
Continue readingEngland need some E45 cream
< 1 minute readAfter snatching the second one-day international, England decided to test the notion that they can now win from any position by giddily launching themselves towards 20-6 in the third. Now 20-6 is definitely a score you can win from, but ideally you’d be fielding when it occurred. South Africa got
Continue readingSouth Africa have already choked
< 1 minute readWe were quite keen to be first off the mark in using the word “choked” to mean “lost a cricket match” in reference to South Africa this summer. Hopefully we have achieved our aim. When you see the term deployed by others in the weeks to come, be sure to
Continue readingThe pressure builds – a four-Test story of two opposing batsmen
3 minute readOne is English, one is Pakistani. One is young, one is old – or at least he is in cricketing terms. For much of last summer’s Test series between England and Pakistan, Alex Hales and Younus Khan trod a similar path. Come the last Test, their journeys diverged markedly. Hales
Continue readingAn acceptable way to finish a cricket match and an unacceptable way to report on one
2 minute readWe’ve been having some absolutely belting weather for the last week or so in these parts – but only on the sly. The gale force winds that have been partially masking things finally abated today and the lull revealed one of those perfect spring days that make you slightly less
Continue readingEngland’s bowling and some clarification on the current condition of Aleem Dar’s lower face
2 minute readYesterday morning, our cat Monty did a more than passable impersonation of Mark Wood’s backwards press run-up as he exited the house. Despite his unutterably poor track record of predicting cricket matches, we took this as a clear sign that England would beat Ireland. And so it proved. We’ve just
Continue readingZafar Ansari’s “other ambitions” and other tales of premature retirement from cricket
2 minute readEach to his own and all that, but the “new chapter” in Zafar Ansari’s life sounds dull as shit to us. He’s retired from cricket at the age of 25 to pursue another career, “potentially in law”. We’ve been here before. We’ve been here several times. There was James Bruce,
Continue readingThe format of the new ECB T20 competition
2 minute readHere’s a coagulation of plans, proposals, assumptions and best-guesses for the format of the ECB’s new 20-over competition which is due to begin in 2020. Eight sides Eight group matches each Home and away local derbies (to permit that eighth match) IPL style play-offs ECB-produced TV coverage with some matches
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