< 1 minute read Just close your eyes, stick your arse out, wobble your bat at a funny angle and hope. It’ll be fine. This is the technique for dealing with the moving ball. There is absolutely no way that this is the wrong approach. Three people out? Just stick with it. It’ll reap
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Jesse Ryder quarantined
< 1 minute read We have never once seen someone quarantined without dire consequences for everyone on earth. It starts with vomiting. It ends with zombies or a flesh-eating virus. Maybe there’s an alien gestating inside Jesse Ryder as we speak – Lord knows, there’s room for one. It’s at times like this that
Continue readingDaniel Vettori – the premier slow left-arm all-rounder
< 1 minute read Daniel Vettori took 9-133 in this Test. Shakib al Hasan took 9-116. Daniel Vettori hit 76 in his second innings. Shakib al Hasan hit 71. Daniel Vettori hit 55 not out in his first innings. Shakib al Hasan got five. Daniel Vettori wins. New Zealand win. Shakib al Hasan loses.
Continue readingShakib al Hasan becomes a Test player
< 1 minute read Shakib al Hasan has played six Tests before this current one against New Zealand, but he hasn’t hit a fifty and before today he was averaging over a hundred with the ball. Not any more. After Bangladesh recovered from a rocky start to their innings to post a mediocre 245,
Continue readingMashrafe Mortaza takes New Zealand to the cleaners
< 1 minute read “Daniel Vettori, Brendon McCullum, Jacob Oram – this is the cleaners. The washing powder’s over there. It’s a quid for a full cycle and 20p for the dryers.” “Thanks Mashrafe.” Mashrafe Mortaza’s 4-44 today set up Bangladesh’s win. Mashrafe now has 116 ODI (one-day international) wickets at 31.78. He’s very
Continue readingJesse Ryder’s back
< 1 minute read Is broad and pudgy and malleable like plasticine. It’s an amorphous, wobbling built-in cushion so he can lie down anywhere and feel comfortable. It’s also a trap. When Jesse Ryder needs to take all that weight off his feet, he plonks himself down and leans into his back’s exquisitely welcoming
Continue readingEngland v New Zealand: it’s been…
< 1 minute read …of a lengthy duration. We’re not the kind of cricket site that’s ashamed when we completely overlook an England one-day international and the nineteenth match in a row between England and New Zealand was no time to adopt professionalism. When England were in New Zealand, they won the Tests and
Continue readingRunning out a player who’s on the deck
< 1 minute read We like a bit of ruthlessness, but there’s a fairly clear line between ‘ruthlessness’ and ‘being a dick’. We call it the ‘being a dick line’ and we always try and stay the right side of it. England didn’t. Ryan Sidebottom went after the ball and inadvertently decked Grant Elliott
Continue readingLast ball finishes are good whatever length the format
< 1 minute read What a great match. What a fantastic finish. One-day cricket’s an idiot – how can it not know that it’s dead? Twenty20 waited for one-day cricket in an Indian backstreet and when one-day cricket arrived, Twenty20 beat it senseless with a black cricket bat. One-day cricket’s bloodied and barely conscious,
Continue readingHalf of England in love with money
< 1 minute read Apparently half of the England team would consider retiring early to play in the IPL. The greedy blighters. How dare they come down on the side of fiscal wealth against such lofty notions as pride, honour and respect. How dare they forfeit the unique opportunity to be slagged off in
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