< 1 minute readLuckless at the Rose Bowl, mediocre at Old Trafford, Pankaj Singh has thus far found two ways to avoid taking a Test wicket. Our worry is that two will prove enough; that he’ll fail to take a wicket in this match and will never return to the team. It’s become
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Stuart Broad isn’t who you think he is
2 minute readThere have been a few stats of late about James Anderson and Stuart Broad as a bowling partnership. Something about lots of wickets. We forget how many. On paper, they’re a wonderfully complementary duo. One’s a devious swing bowler; the other’s rangly and hits the deck hard (a phrase which
Continue readingCause and effect in the land of MS Dhoni
< 1 minute readYou wonder whether Ishant Sharma’s ‘sore leg’ might have resulted from his workload. And how did Bhuvneshwar Kumar look in the third Test, MS? “I think Bhuvi seemed to be a bit tired.” Maybe you shouldn’t have picked just the four bowlers then. “In the first couple of games we
Continue readingSack Dhoni
< 1 minute readMight as well call for at least one of the captains to be sacked. His batsmen have crumbled against bowling they should be comfortable against, his senior players aren’t ‘standing up’, he’s insisting on fielding a part-time spinner instead of a specialist and he hasn’t made a hundred in his
Continue readingMoeen Ali won’t tie up an end
2 minute readThere are two types of spin bowlers: The first kind is the attacking kind. They bat at number 11, but with the ball in their hand, they can take wickets. Early in their career, they can be a bit hit and miss, going for a few boundaries, but you try
Continue readingWe just want to watch Jos Buttler bat
< 1 minute readWhatever his keeping’s like and no matter whether or not he’s ‘ready’ for Test cricket, we’re very pleased that Jos Buttler is now in England’s Test team. We like skittishness in a number seven batsman. It is always worth watching Buttler at the crease and when he bats with Ian
Continue readingFour bowlers, five runs and one Gary Ballance
2 minute readAfter winning the previous Test with four-and-a-bit bowlers, India could have gone either way for this one. Unsurprisingly, they went with four bowlers, not five. Sometimes you can determine a lot from these fifty-fifty calls and MS Dhoni does seem to be a bit of a ‘pick the extra batsman’
Continue readingTest match start days and the concept of ‘appointment to view’
< 1 minute readThis year they moved the Twenty20 Cup to Friday nights to create an ‘appointment to view’. The premise is if people know when matches are being played, there’s a better chance they’ll watch. This year also sees a five-Test series taking place between England and India which boasts four different
Continue readingIshant Sharma with the short ball at Lord’s
2 minute readIt’s an unlikely Cluedo solution, but it happened. We saw it with our own eyes. Joe Root was the third caught attacking the short ball after lunch and he did a cracking Charlie Brown slope upon being dismissed. It was really, really first class. We were in awe. We don’t
Continue readingAnd again England concede runs to the lower order
< 1 minute readIt’s okay to start headlines with ‘and’ when you’re emphasising the repetitive nature of something. Ravindra Jadeja isn’t exactly the tail, of course. Even if you play half your domestic matches on the world’s flattest pitch, scoring three triple hundreds shifts you out of the tail-end category never to return.
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