2 minute readJustin Langer has a philosophy. It’s changed the culture of the Western Australia cricket team and made them successful. Central to his philosophy are the following three rules: Use common sense Keep things simple No mobile phones at training This revelation comes from within an almost transcendentally nauseating interview. Other
Continue readingCategory: News
England’s 2015 World Cup Song (to the tune of Waltzing Matilda)
2 minute readSticking with World Cup songs, Bert writes: All proper World Cup campaigns, no matter what the sport, need a World Cup Song, but in the past I think teams have made a tactical mistake. All these songs tell of hope and excitement, of the chance of winning, no matter how
Continue readingMop-up of the day – tails and knees
2 minute readFirst up, tail-enders. They’re ace, but they’re a dying breed. Blame professionalism. Now we love lower-order shenanigans as much as the next person, but the key word there is ‘shenanigans’. A textbook forward defensive stroke is not a shenanigan. These are shenanigans. A tail-end innings should bring all the fun
Continue readingMop-up of the day – heads and faces
2 minute readCan New Zealand do what Australia couldn’t and give Pakistan a decent Test match? Brendon McCullum’s already made a major contribution to his team’s cause in the second Test by winning the toss. We don’t actually know whether McCullum went for heads or tails or whether he just passively watched
Continue readingMop-up of the day – legs and hands
< 1 minute readOur latest Kings of Cricket piece is up on the All Out Cricket website. The subject is Paul Collingwood. Bear with us. We think we’ve made our case. It’s mostly about his magical magnetic hand, but there’s more to it than that. Consider it a paean to three-dimensionality; an ode
Continue readingThey call Rohit Sharma ‘Nohit’ – the meaning of big numbers
2 minute readThat nickname seems a tad unfair, no? The guy’s just made his second one-day international double hundred. In 50 overs, that demands a phenomenal scoring rate, but it’s interesting to note that Rohit Sharma played himself in. Here’s the breakdown of his innings: 50 off 72 balls 100 off 100
Continue readingMop-up of the day – rail and radar
< 1 minute readA lot of people were going for the ‘we can land a robot on a comet but we can’t get the trains to arrive on time’ line of reasoning yesterday. Just to let you know, it’s not the same people. Different people are responsible for space missions and rail travel.
Continue readingMop-up of the day – bones, Bangladesh batsmen and battery
< 1 minute readIs MS Dhoni’s arm made out of just one super fast-growing bone? We’re imagining an ever-extending protuberance that requires regular pruning based on the following from Cricinfo: “On the eve of the meeting, a BCCI insider revealed that Dhoni was recovering from a “right forearm” injury. By the time the
Continue readingShivnarine Chanderpaul talking about Wasim Akram
< 1 minute readRahul Bhattacharya’s piece about Shivnarine Chanderpaul in the November issue of The Cricket Monthly is full of highlights, not least because a man who is himself one of our favourite cricketers also seems to revere exactly the same players we do. He describes how Brian Lara would sometimes put spin
Continue readingNew Zealand witness a perfect stellar eclipse
< 1 minute readPoor New Zealand. In recent times, they have slowly been putting together a solid side. Since losing to England last year, they have drawn one Test series and won three. They have one of the more promising seam attacks around and have even found a few batsmen. Now they find
Continue reading