< 1 minute read There it is. We haven’t seen much of it this winter, but the grin, run and airborne five got a welcome airing as England won the final Test to take a 2-1 win. Is there a dedicated recipient of the airborne five? It seems to be choreographed well enough that
Continue readingCategory: New Zealand
Tim Southee suffers THE RAGE
< 1 minute read For some reason New Zealand demoted Tim Southee from number nine to number ten in their second innings. Southee was clearly irked by this and promptly hit New Zealand’s fastest-ever Test fifty in a magnificent display powered by THE RAGE. England’s fielders thought they were being clever when Southee came
Continue readingStephen Fleming finishes with a pair of fifties
< 1 minute read Everybody else is saying it, so why shouldn’t we? How apt that Stephen Fleming should retire with a fifty in each innings. In total he hit 46 in Test cricket, but only nine hundreds. Statistics might not tell the whole story, but there’s only the odd semi-colon missing in this
Continue readingAndrew Strauss gets the job done with BIG RUNS
2 minute read There are two sides to this, being as we’re English, we’re first going to concentrate on the negative, because that’s our knee-jerk response when our side have made a comprehensive fightback and put themselves in total control of a Test match. Andrew Strauss shouldn’t have been playing. He shouldn’t have
Continue readingRyan Sidebottom takes 7-47
< 1 minute read A week or so ago, we wondered whether Steve Harmison’s underlying lack of confidence was the result of not feeling like he’d earned his place in the England team. With six years and hundreds of first-class wickets between his first and second Test appearances, Ryan Sidebottom must feel the opposite.
Continue readingEngland’s top six are going to make BIG RUNS
< 1 minute read Word is they’re all hitting it well in the nets. Confidence is rising. Big scores are due. With players of their class, hundreds are just around the corner. As soon as one batsman cashes in, the floodgates will open. Because that’s the way it works. All batsmen have got a
Continue readingRyan Sidebottom does the necessary
2 minute read We said after the last Test that you need spectacular performances to win Tests and you also need them to give you some breathing room in case of a bad day. England got away with one day of buttery fingers thanks to Tim Ambrose’s hundred and James Anderson’s five wickets.
Continue readingAnderson knacks his ankle
2 minute read Yes, ‘knacks’. We’re not the BBC here, you know. We don’t have to use proper Standard English words, like ‘knackers’. Actually, we do like to use the word ‘knackers’, but only as a noun. For the verb, we favour ‘to knack’. It was one of those days where you’re waiting
Continue readingJames Anderson’s back
2 minute read As in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. To think it’s been almost a year since we last made that joke. How time flies. James Anderson has a bit of a reputation for – and you have to use these exact words – ‘spraying it around’. While this
Continue readingTim Ambrose makes himself at home
< 1 minute read Jonathan Agnew wrote today: “Tim Ambrose might be one of the shortest men currently playing Test cricket, but this man can bat.” We’d go further than that. We’d say, ‘Tim Ambrose might have attended Merewether Selective High, but he managed to hit two sixes’. We like a good non-sequitur. Before
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