< 1 minute readThere’s been a fair amount of whinging about the slowness and lowness of the pitch – and not without cause – but it strikes us that really good bowling attacks don’t happen across dead pitches very often. England’s is not a really good bowling attack. The point of Test cricket
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Tighter than the seal provided by a nitrile O-ring
2 minute readBut yet able to withstand heat in the manner of an O-ring fashioned from a Viton fluoroelastomer. Sri Lanka’s bowling was so efficient, it deserves to be described using mechanical gasket terminology. The power of weirdness This World T20 was another lesson for those who still believe that the shortest
Continue readingSouth Africa chose to bat
< 1 minute readThat was where everything went wrong. They hauled it back a bit by batting okay, but really the match was decided when Faf du Plessis scorned the coin’s generosity. Why would you ask Virat Kohli to chase? It’s like asking Mike Gatting to guard your cupcakes from scavengers. This leaves
Continue readingWhen is a lottery not a lottery?
< 1 minute readMinnows, upsets, India v Pakistan and the semi-finals already – this World T20 is getting the job done. And while some people claim that Twenty20 can be a lottery, you can make a strong case for the four remaining teams also being the four strongest. Sri Lanka v West Indies
Continue readingIndia v Pakistan was actually quite, quite rubbish
< 1 minute readWe can officially reveal that India v Pakistan in the World T20 wasn’t quite interesting enough to prevent keen cricket fans from going out to buy eggs and then out again, a second time, to post something. To put this in context, we would rank posting letters right up there
Continue readingBrendon McCullum and BJ Watling hang around for a bit
< 1 minute readBrendon McCullum is a positive person; the kind of irritating, upbeat character who can’t understand everyone else’s entirely logical can’t-do attitude to things. When he was joined at the crease by BJ Watling in the second Test against India on day three, he’ll have thought: ‘Okay, if we can just
Continue readingMS Dhoni to be investigated for toss fixing
< 1 minute readThat’s a reference to his name cropping up in talk of IPL match fixing and the fact that he’s won 12 international tosses in a row, including all of them on this tour of New Zealand (without yet winning a match). Top tossing, Mahendra. Top tossing. Even if the perfect
Continue readingNew Zealand surrender almost all of their advantage
< 1 minute readLeading India by 301 runs after the first innings, New Zealand frittered away all but 40 of them in the second innings to ensure an unexpectedly exciting finish to the first Test. If you’re in an almost unassailable position and want to make things interesting for yourself, get bowled out
Continue readingMeanwhile in cricket…
< 1 minute readIt’s a week in which teams have been relying on their big name, 30-something batsmen. This isn’t a coincidence. That’s just the way Test cricket works. Kumar Sangakkara has indulged in some average bolsteration by hitting 424 runs in the second Test against Bangladesh. For their part, Bangladesh managed two
Continue readingWhere are we up to with ‘the draft proposal’?
< 1 minute readWe ask that not even knowing whether it’s still a draft or not? When does a draft proposal become an official proposal? When they actually come to vote on it? Presumably that’ll only happen once everything’s been thrashed out, in which case official proposal status will be a transient and
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