2 minute readCaptaincy is an odd thing. It always strikes us that becoming captain is like being a writer promoted to a management position. We’ve had jobs where a senior colleague with a stupid job title has come up to us and basically said: “Your writing and editing is so good that
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Another England cricketer eroded
< 1 minute readAfter Matt Prior missed one particular catch in the second Test, a Sky commentator – possibly Mike Atherton – suggested that the wicketkeeper might be having trouble moving to his right due to all his accumulated injury problems. In his statement announcing that he was standing down for the rest
Continue readingIshant Sharma with the short ball at Lord’s
2 minute readIt’s an unlikely Cluedo solution, but it happened. We saw it with our own eyes. Joe Root was the third caught attacking the short ball after lunch and he did a cracking Charlie Brown slope upon being dismissed. It was really, really first class. We were in awe. We don’t
Continue readingAnd again England concede runs to the lower order
< 1 minute readIt’s okay to start headlines with ‘and’ when you’re emphasising the repetitive nature of something. Ravindra Jadeja isn’t exactly the tail, of course. Even if you play half your domestic matches on the world’s flattest pitch, scoring three triple hundreds shifts you out of the tail-end category never to return.
Continue readingAlastair Cook failed to ration his runs
< 1 minute readVirat Kohli’s due a score, isn’t he? And how many runs has Alastair Cook got in his bag, just waiting to be plucked out? Or is it more that Cook’s now suffering the inevitable consequences of frittering runs away earlier in his career. There was a complete lack of rationing
Continue readingGary Ballance bares his teeth
< 1 minute readA lot. It seems to be his default facial expression while batting. It’s a little disconcerting. But on the plus side, we’ve already started thinking to ourself: “At least Ballance is still in,” as if he’s the most reliable of the England batsmen. Like Jonathan Trott, you don’t really feel
Continue readingAjinkya Rahane v Suresh Raina
2 minute readOkay, turns out we do have something else to say. It’s to do with who’s a good batsman. We don’t want this to become a Suresh Raina bashing thing, because we’ve a certain amount of time for him. He does certain things better than almost anyone. The issue is that
Continue readingAjinkya Rahane’s overdue a proper mention
< 1 minute readFor the second time this series, we find ourself looking for an old article of ours about an Indian batsman only to find that we never actually wrote it. As far back as 2012, we were casually referring to Ajinkya Rahane in a matter of fact way, as if you
Continue readingSimon Kerrigan – will they or won’t they?
< 1 minute readMost people’s knowledge of Simon Kerrigan’s bowling amounts to eight overs on his debut. That’s not a huge amount to go off and those overs too in circumstances that can be considered exceptional and therefore perhaps not properly representative of his ability. On the other hand, he still has to
Continue readingA pitch for Cook the bowler and Anderson the batsman
< 1 minute readFor a very short while on the final day, it seemed like things could potentially maybe be sort of in the balance a little bit if a few more things went England’s way, but then it very much wasn’t in the balance and the day climaxed with Alastair Cook’s round-arm
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