2 minute readWe all can’t spake. Uncertainty is the lifeblood of sport and so this series has made for compulsive viewing. As the Test Match Special Twitter account put it yesterday. Things in Dhaka have continued where they left off in Chittagong! Again, the momentum has reversed in a matter of minutes.
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England derailed by their own sickening wrong-handedness
< 1 minute readWith hindsight, maybe England should have picked more right-handers. None of their left-handed batsmen passed 20, while all of their right-handers did, bar Steven Finn. Quite why people think it’s acceptable to do things left-handed is beyond us. Bangladesh are working their way into a strong position. This is no
Continue readingWhy Gary Ballance’s 2016 return to the England side was too easy for him
3 minute readEngland dropped Gary Ballance before the third Ashes Test of 2015 after a run of form that wasn’t actually all that dreadful with the benefit of hindsight. He had passed 30 once in his last 10 innings and had been bowled five times. People said he struggled against good quick
Continue readingZafar Ansari is almost certainly batting too high
< 1 minute readEarlier today, we took issue with England’s willingness to make bold prophecies. However, we rather shot our match-previewing bolt yesterday, so we’re now going to have to commit much the same crime simply so that we have something to say. We are guessing/predicting that Zafar Ansari will be (a) playing
Continue readingGareth Batty – the winter bike
2 minute readThere seems to be a tendency in some quarters to perceive England’s Test tours of Bangladesh and India as being one long competitive outing. They are not. They are separate. For all the talk of ‘taking a look’ at players ahead of England’s arrival in India, there is a Test
Continue readingWhat the use of Mitchell Johnson’s head as a toilet brush says about the Australia cricket team
< 1 minute readIt’s increasingly fashionable for captains and coaches to talk about building culture within their team – shared values and working together and all that crap. Mitchell Johnson’s autobiography, Resilient, features a colourful anecdote from his time at the Cricket Academy in Adelaide which sheds light on every aspect of the
Continue readingWhy Bangladesh are potentially having a reasonably well-attended party
2 minute readTwenty-two runs – England’s winning margin – is not a lot. You can splice and dice it however you want. It’s a bunch of thick edges to third man. It’s a handful of extra runs from your lower order across two innings because you’ve picked countless all-rounders. It’s less than
Continue readingThe scope of Ben Stokes
2 minute readIf you were to look at Ben Stokes purely as a batsman or purely as a bowler, you’d struggle to see what the fuss was about. Averages of 34.04 and 35.64 are still at this stage the wrong way round. Taken together, you begin to get a sense of his
Continue readingITV4 Test highlights programme begs a few questions
2 minute readYesterday we let you all know that ITV4 are broadcasting Test highlights for this Bangladesh v England series. We suggested that if you missed the programme at 7pm then you might be able to catch it via ITV’s on-demand service. We may have misled you there. Doesn’t look like it’s
Continue readingMehedi Hasan is no Murali
< 1 minute readMehedi Hasan is making his debut. Bangladesh saw fit to give him the Murali role. Younger readers might think that ‘the Murali role’ is all about being brilliant and freakish and baffling people with magic, but there is a more prosaic aspect to it too. For much of his career,
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