< 1 minute readWe like R Ashwin. He seems… keen. He’s talented too, but talented players are ten-a-penny. Who cares about them? No, what we like is a stony face when someone runs in to bowl; a face that says: ‘Shut up, I’m working. No, seriously, stop it. I’m trying to concentrate. I’ve
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Is Tendulkar’s milestone a higher priority than winning a Test match?
< 1 minute readHome ground. Series won. You could be forgiven for wondering whether the Wankhede pitch has been tailored for one man’s benefit – one man and his legion of fans, that is. We could say that placing so much emphasis on one man’s achievement is disrespectful towards the 21 marionettes who
Continue readingDuncan Fletcher’s India team
< 1 minute readHaving extracted our face from the dent in our desk, we did manage to catch much of today’s play, our view unobscured by tears of frustration. What we saw was India’s bowling attack and it looks a damn sight better than it had in England. Bizarrely, the man who emerged
Continue readingIndian batsmen hit hundreds
< 1 minute readWe’re not really sure what to write about today. We suppose we should make reference to India v West Indies, but we were either asleep or at work for today’s play, so we don’t really have much to say. Looking at the scorecard, we’re kind of irritated that MS Dhoni
Continue readingTest cricket attendances in India
2 minute readRitesh’s match report has attracted attention from far and wide. We’ve a nagging concern that people are going to arrive here thinking this is an intelligent website that makes serious points only to be confronted with something like this. But what are you going to do? Even so, we thought
Continue readingIndia v West Indies match report
3 minute readRitesh writes: I solved a mystery yesterday. In a Test that could well see Sachin Tendulkar hit his 100th international century, only 8,000 people turned up on a Sunday to a ground that holds 50,000. Of course such turnouts are not uncommon at marginal grounds where the BCCI insists on
Continue readingHome advantage in cricket
< 1 minute readWe’re a great fan of home advantage. It’s a key part of cricket. If matches between two teams were likely to have the same outcome both home and away then the sport would lose a significant quality. It also means that away wins are even more significant. England’s victory in
Continue readingSuresh Raina is getting nowhere fast
2 minute readYou’d think you’d be more convinced about a player after he’d hit 80 off 62 balls in a one-day match. At worst, you’d think you’d feel the same about him. Yet somehow Suresh Raina actually managed to erode our confidence in him. This despite the fact that we said India
Continue readingVirat Kohli should be in India’s Test team
< 1 minute readRob Key says that even Suresh Raina must wonder how he gets picked ahead of Virat Kohli. It’s not just because we mindlessly go along with everything Rob says like a mindless yes-man that we agree with him on this occasion. There’s been a change in Kohli. He’s always looked
Continue readingUmesh Yadav’s bowling speed
< 1 minute readUmesh Yadav just bowled a 90mph delivery. By this time next year, he should have reined that in and India can expect to have another solid medium-pacer available to them. Yadav has much to learn. If he thinks he should be striving for the kind of delivery that he bowled
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