< 1 minute read People often talk of Test cricket as being a battle. A match can at times be like two medieval knights hacking away at each other, inflicting a whole series of ghastly wounds until one or the other finally succumbs. It doesn’t always work like that in India. Rather than a
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Haseeb Hameed is not a blocker
< 1 minute read The pace of the world is too much for us these days. Haseeb Hameed is already defying other people’s expectations of him even before we’ve managed to form expectations for him to defy. Hameed has been labelled ‘Baby Boycott’ in some quarters. On the basis of what exactly? The fact
Continue readingWhy England should ignore Michael Vaughan and just keep sawing
< 1 minute read In another era, England could have embarked on this Test with no leg-spinner and little comprehension of reverse swing. Working their way through the Indian batting line-up would have been like trying to saw through a tree trunk with a butter knife. After days of toil, they’d have succeeded only
Continue readingWhy ‘par score’ is a fairly useless concept during a Test match
2 minute read England have made too many runs and they don’t deserve any credit. India will now make more and England will lose. A lot of England supporters seem to have swiftly moved on from ‘England are doing brilliantly’ to ‘India would have done just as well had they batted so this
Continue readingAt least Moeen Ali made 99 not out
< 1 minute read Imagine that today is exactly like today only Moeen Ali made a duck. There, you see – things could be slightly worse. This isn’t so much a ‘glass half full’ attitude as a ‘there’s still something in there, I’m sure – maybe if I tip the glass the right way
Continue readingGary Ballance climbs wearily onto the treadmill
2 minute read When a player is dropped during a home series, there’s only one way back into the side. They perform well in first-class cricket, they tell themselves they’ve proved the doubters wrong and they return mentally buoyed. When you’re dropped on tour, things can pan out differently. Gary Ballance has just
Continue readingOur England-India composite XI
2 minute read All Out Cricket are doing a thing where you can pick your England-India Composite XI from the last 25 years. Here’s ours: It’s easy to be distracted by the mouth-watering batting line-up, but there’s more to this team than that. We’ve also picked three spinners, which means either Jonathan Trott
Continue readingJames Anderson’s back!
< 1 minute read As in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. In Bangladesh, England typically made headway with the ball when they managed to get some reverse swing. Ben Stokes was far and away the most effective practitioner. Should England manage to get Anderson back into the team at some point
Continue readingMop-up of the day – Batting collapses don’t just come against spin, apparently
2 minute read A true collapse comes after a start. Throwing a load of Lego bricks over the floor is just a mess; putting them together to build some sort of tower before watching it keel over – that’s a collapse. Like England last week, Australia took the time to set the scene.
Continue readingJack Leach and why you should never pick your saviours
2 minute read England lost to Bangladesh. There has to be a reason for it and it has to be that they picked the wrong players. One obvious area in which England were inferior was the spin department. Last season Jack Leach took more wickets than the spinners who played in the last
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