< 1 minute readThe 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
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Why England should ignore Michael Vaughan and just keep sawing
< 1 minute readIn 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 readEngland 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 readingGary Ballance climbs wearily onto the treadmill
2 minute readWhen 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 readAll 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 readingR Ashwin is India’s best player and we won’t hear otherwise
2 minute readThanks to India’s flat, lifeless pitches, R Ashwin averages 33.55 with the bat. Because of India’s rank turners, he averages 24.29 with the ball. Or could it be that R Ashwin is India’s best cricketer? We’ve covered this kind of thing before, but you reach our age and you no
Continue readingSome cricket that was scheduled to happen really is going to happen
< 1 minute readIndia are to play New Zealand in the third Test in Indore despite someone somewhere reporting that they wouldn’t. The Indian Express spoke to “a senior board official” who said the BCCI’s bank accounts had been frozen at the recommendation of a court-appointed panel set up to look into its
Continue readingIs Virat Kohli really India’s best batsman?
2 minute readWere he to find himself playing in a format-spanning Super Series, it would seem highly likely that Virat Kohli could find himself named man-of-it. The guy averages over 50 in the two shorter formats with a perfectly healthy strike-rate in both. His Test record’s very good too: 12 Test hundreds
Continue readingWhy Indian pitches offer an excellent exchange rate
< 1 minute readRemember when India’s batsmen used to make double hundreds all the time? Captains routinely doubled up as doctors in the first innings, declaring the innings closed and the pitches dead (even if a certain zombie joie de vivre often manifested itself in the form of turn on day five.) It’s
Continue readingWhere is the ICC’s Test mace?
2 minute readNot much more than a week ago, Australia captain Steve Smith was presented with the ICC Test Championship mace in a closed ceremony. The media and public would of course have been clamouring to attend such a spectacular and meaningful event. The nature of the presentation gave rise to an
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