< 1 minute readWe’ve tried to give up writing about Matthew Hayden’s habit of talking a load of incomprehensible bollocks, but as the man himself says in a recent interview on Cricinfo: “Sometimes things are just meant to be, aren’t they? You just have to give in to the higher forces and say,
Continue readingCategory: News
How Brendon McCullum made international cricket slightly better
2 minute readIt’s a familiar story to most of you, but it’s worth retelling. Looking back on losing his first two Tests as captain to South Africa by more than an innings, McCullum told the New Zealand Herald: “If we’re being honest, at that point the perception of the New Zealand cricket
Continue readingMop-up of the day – Hello and goodbye and are you leaving?
< 1 minute readBuoyed by a first innings display in which he took six for a million, Neil Wagner persisted with his innovative attritional shock tactics in the second. He took 1-60. It’s worth noting that Wagner produced this display despite a broken hand. More accurately, he produced this display despite a broken
Continue reading
Ian Botham and the statistical unit that is a cricketer’s career
2 minute readOne guy played 25 Tests and finished with a batting average of 40.48 and a bowling average of 18.52. Another guy played the same number of Tests and averaged 23.45 with the bat and 42 with the ball. Name those cricketers. We’ll give you the answer at the end of
Continue readingWhile Neil Wagner might occasionally let you down, he does frequently pick up a few wickets from a long and determined spell when no-one else is really making any inroads
< 1 minute readAs Australia’s batsmen dominated New Zealand’s bowlers, there was only one thing left to do: call for Neil Wagner and ask him to bowl 25 overs of short-pitched bowling. Neil Wagner isn’t perfect, but if you’re looking for donkey work strike bowling (can that be a thing?) then he’s your
Continue readingBrendon McCullum remains very much himself
2 minute readBelieve it or not, batting with positive intent isn’t actually a new invention. In the hundred-and-odd years of Test cricket, people did actually try it from time to time before now. Mostly they got out. New Zealand were heavily beaten in the first Test against Australia and when Brendon McCullum
Continue readingDo the Rising Pune Supergiants have the finest name in the history of sport?
< 1 minute readThe answer is yes. “Supergiants” beats “Super Kings” on account of it being one word. A ‘super giant’ would simply be a giant who was very, very good, whereas a ‘Supergiant’ is a massive dude with extraordinary strength and x-ray vision who can also fly. The fact that they are
Continue readingAlex Hales cultivates a healthy aversion to failure
2 minute readIf you were starring in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and needed to act in a scene where the submarine grounded on the seabed or was attacked by some sort of leviathan, there was only one way to do it. You and the rest of the cast ran
Continue readingEngland win, England lose, life goes on
< 1 minute readSometimes you win, sometimes you lose. When you win, all’s well. The captain says that you played well as a unit while adding a cautionary note: “We are not yet the finished article.” When you lose, he talks about processes and learning curves. Lose a few in a row and
Continue readingShivnarine Chanderpaul’s take on specific training
< 1 minute readDavid Warner said that back in 2012, he saw Shivnarine Chanderpaul put in a six-hour shift against the bowling machine. “I said ‘This is ridiculous, how can you do this?’ and he said: ‘If you’re going to bat for six hours in a game you might as well practise it.’”
Continue reading