2 minute read“With all due respect…” people say, or “No offence but…” What follows these phrases is somehow never respectful or inoffensive. England coach and selector Chris Silverwood (we warned you he’d try and become a ‘supremo’) didn’t actually plump for either of those options when speaking about the summer ahead earlier
Continue reading
2 minute readWe tend to think of the ‘bio-bubble’ imposed on touring cricketers as an oppressive, negative thing. But there is an upside – at least from a purely cricket point of view. Thanks to the way the world has been this last year or so, it’s perhaps a little easier for
Continue reading
< 1 minute readThe thing about talking grandiose self-serving bollocks is that not only does it expose your fundamental hollowness, but the fundamental meaninglessness of what you said may well also be exposed. Late last month, as the IPL scrabbled towards its inevitable postponement, the most eye-poppingly you-don’t-even-believe-this-yourself justification for continuing came from
Continue reading
2 minute readLook, obviously six fours in an over is not better than six sixes in an over. But also it is. That’s what we’re going to argue here. Delhi Capitals were chasing 155 against Kolkata Knight Riders yesterday and it’s fair to say they got off to a pretty solid start.
Continue reading
2 minute readIf Virat Kohli has a defining quality, it is faintly-unnerving intensity. Remember that time he was basically livid about beating Australia? Or all of those very many times when he celebrated a hundred with incandescent rage? We’re if not quite numb to these displays by now, then at least acclimatised
Continue reading
2 minute readRight-arm, average height, fast-medium: there is not, at the very surface level, a great deal to recommend Bhuvneshwar Kumar as a white ball bowler. He’ll just have to rely on his incredible ability and results if he wants to win people over. In the T20 series, England’s bowlers conceded between
Continue reading
< 1 minute readA run doesn’t have a set value. That is a recurring theme of this website. The value of a run derives from the game in which it is scored and in all honesty can only accurately be gauged with hindsight. Up until the moment a match is finally decided, all
Continue reading
2 minute readEngland just played a handful of T20s in India ahead of the World T20 in India later this year. How did it go? Did anyone learn anything? The headline stat is that India won 3-2. The standfirst stat is that they managed that while testing out more players than England.
Continue reading
3 minute readWhen it comes to T20 batting, the ICC’s rankings reward selfishness – but teams often benefit more from selflessness. The Dawid Malan debate is an interesting one. There’s a pretty strong case for saying T20 batting rankings aren’t worth the webspace that stores the algorithms that generate them. Because what
Continue reading
5 minute readEngland are finally putting out their first team. And people aren’t happy. Speaking ahead of the T20 series against India, Eoin Morgan came as close as anyone has so far to articulating the principles underpinning England’s 2021 squad rotation policy. (We’re not going to call it a ‘controversial’ squad rotation
Continue reading