2 minute readTest cricket is famously hard. Some can’t quite comprehend what that means, thinking a reverse-swinging 90mph yorker is the same no matter what the format. It’s not all about the details though. Sometimes it’s the sheer relentlessness. Test cricket is like cycling uphill. It’s possible to cope with a small
Continue readingCategory: News
Shivnarine Chanderpaul is still gloriously risk averse
< 1 minute readAustralia celebrated when they dismissed the West Indies’ Kraigg Brathwaite for 57 off 199 balls. As an achievement, it was like flouncing over a stile before tackling the mountain. Shivnarine Chanderpaul promptly walked to the crease and only departed when Darren Sammy declared. Shiv simply cannot be bothered being dismissed.
Continue readingIs a draw in Sri Lanka a good result?
< 1 minute readHistorically, a drawn Test series in Sri Lanka is a pretty good result for England. Set against that is the fact that Muttiah Muralitharan doesn’t play any more. Sri Lanka’s bowlers are a bit middling. Should England have done better? Well we’re pretty happy with a draw, particularly after watching
Continue readingKevin Pietersen applies a good thick layer of Polyfilla to his insecurities
2 minute readSome innings are more important that the numbers might indicate, but we always feel thankful when Kevin Pietersen reaches three figures. The resultant fist-pumping’s cheering in a laughable kind of way, but more importantly it means that detractors have to revise the ‘hasn’t scored a hundred since [insert date]’ statement
Continue readingModern technology has brought us this
< 1 minute readKent batsman, Mike Powell, published this yesterday. For those of us who don’t take in all our information via a telephone, it’s worth rotating our monitors through 90 degrees for. However, just to be clear, we still do not approve of dancing. As a liberated physical expression of joy, it
Continue readingEngland batsmen score runs
< 1 minute readIt warrants a headline. Even if Jonathan Trott got a ton in the last match, this time it’s plural. More than one England batsman has scored some runs. One of them was even Andrew Strauss. It’s remarkably easy to catch up with a match that’s going badly. Last week, we
Continue readingMahela Jayawardene v England
< 1 minute readAs abysmal as England’s batsmen have been, the team would stand a pretty decent chance of beating Sri Lanka if they didn’t spend most of their time in the field attempting to dismiss just one of the two batsmen at the crease. If they’re in Sri Lanka, England are probably
Continue readingMonty got a raw deal
< 1 minute readEngland drop Monty Panesar readily. Whether it’s because of form, the pitch or ‘the balance of the side’, they don’t seem shy about leaving him out. Maybe the decision will be vindicated, but he seems to have been collateral damage following a line of thinking that betrays England’s lack of
Continue readingTim Bresnan near a pirate’s fantasy
< 1 minute readNot as exciting as it sounds, but probably a little bit funnier. Damith of The Fly Slip drew our attention to a photo of Tim Bresnan standing near a really expensive cake called Pirate’s Fantasy. We’ve always felt that Tim Bresnan isn’t as chunky as people think he is. We
Continue readingEngland haven’t become a bad Test team
< 1 minute readBut there’s a fair distance between ‘bad’ and ‘good’. Even further between ‘bad’ and ‘the best’. England are in that grey netherland now and no-one really cares about shades of grey when you’ve arrived there from somewhere altogether brighter. England’s batting was a lighter shade of grey in the second
Continue reading