< 1 minute readEngland are going to have to watch this. It’s not deliberate, but if you had to design some tactics to erode a player’s confidence, what they’re doing to Adil Rashid might be what you’d come up with. In the summer, Rashid started the one-day series against Australia well and promptly
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Paul Collingwood part of a proper England one-day batting line-up
< 1 minute readWe were struck that England actually had a good batting line-up today; one with rare solidity. With Andrew Strauss and Jonathan Trott opening, England have grown-ups at the top of the order. There’s a dependable feel about both of them and the rest of the line-up hangs off that. In
Continue readingJimmy Anderson sullied by marketing
< 1 minute readJimmy Anderson’s been signed up by everyone’s favourite overexposed cricket bat brand, Mongoose. All you need to know is that the designer thinks that Anderson’s bowling is “an ideal brand fit for Mongoose”. Imagine what state your soul would be in if you worked somewhere where people regularly said things
Continue readingMahela Jayawardene does not get bored
< 1 minute readAfter Mahela Jayawardene recorded his sixth Test double hundred, it was tempting to wonder whether he ever gets bored. We get bored very, very easily. We get bored midway through unlocking our front door and that takes less than five seconds. The only exception to this is rail travel, where
Continue readingShakib signs for crap second division county
< 1 minute readWe’d sooner Shakib Al Hasan had signed for a first division county, but don’t underestimate the significance of a Bangladeshi clambering aboard the treadmill. It means that while they might be three-and-a-half years late, Worcestershire have cottoned on to the fact that this is a good player – despite the
Continue readingSri Lanka replace Chaminda Vaas
< 1 minute readSri Lanka have searched long and hard and now they’ve finally found a replacement for Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas. Step forward Uda Walawwe Mahim Bandaralage Chanaka Asanga Welegedara, who opened the bowling against India yesterday. If only his mother were still alive to see him make his debut.
Continue readingRahul Dravid still has some runs to score
< 1 minute readDid anyone outside India really think that Rahul Dravid should have been dropped at any point during his relatively prolonged spell of poor form? We certainly didn’t. It’s Rahul Dravid. Looking back now, it seems that run of poor form ended about this time last year in Mohali when he
Continue readingCow corner cricket – Twenty20 matches that push the boundaries
< 1 minute readEngland just couldn’t quite get the 85 runs they needed off the final ball. However, while we give Loots Bosman and Graeme Smith enormous credit for the faultlessness of their hitting, South Africa’s monumental Twenty20 total of 241 was perhaps one step too close to slogging. We defend Twenty20 cricket
Continue readingLoots Bosman and Graeme Smith should play on ‘hard’ now
< 1 minute readLoots Bosman and Graeme Smith today batted in international cricket as if they were playing an overfamiliar cricket computer game on easy setting. Simply aim at cow corner and press the six-hit button. It was astonishingly clean hitting. Almost robotic. Alastair Cook erred hugely in not positioning a fielder on
Continue readingEoin Morgan is the England Twenty20 batsman you most want to watch
< 1 minute readWe’d rate Eoin Morgan’s 85 not out off 45 balls as the best Twenty20 performance we’ve seen from an England player. The six that he ever-so-gently placed onto the roof of a three-storey building outside the ground would ordinarily have been the most remarkable shot played in the match. We
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