3 minute readEngland have reportedly declined India’s ‘informal’ invitation to cancel the fifth Test at Old Trafford. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will therefore do what cricket boards always do in these situations: it will schedule exactly the same number of matches within a shorter span of time.
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< 1 minute readKent’s Darren Stevens has been making some incredible things happen in recent years. This season in particular. In fact he’s now reached a point where he is making bonkers things happen even when he’s no longer in the middle. If you don’t already know what happened today, 45-year-old Darren Stevens
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2 minute readWe’re intrigued by the formality of cricket board requests. India have asked England if the whole of the upcoming Test series can be shunted forwards a week or alternatively whether the fifth Test, at Old Trafford, could be cancelled. But they’ve apparently only done this “informally”. So it’s not an
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2 minute read“With all due respect…” people say, or “No offence but…” What follows these phrases is somehow never respectful or inoffensive. England coach and selector Chris Silverwood (we warned you he’d try and become a ‘supremo’) didn’t actually plump for either of those options when speaking about the summer ahead earlier
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2 minute readSo some of the bowlers did know? “Uh … yeah, look, I think, yeah, I think it’s pretty probably self-explanatory.” It’s hard to say whether Cameron Bancroft finally grew weary of pretending that it was only he, Steve Smith and David Warner who knew about the sandpapering or whether he
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2 minute readInternational cricket’s longest-serving stand-in Test captain, Tim Paine (oh come on, he is), has been talking about whether Steve Smith could one day replace him. Paine told Cricinfo that when he first came into the Australia Test team, Smith was, “growing into that role and getting better and better. Then
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2 minute readWe tend to think of the ‘bio-bubble’ imposed on touring cricketers as an oppressive, negative thing. But there is an upside – at least from a purely cricket point of view. Thanks to the way the world has been this last year or so, it’s perhaps a little easier for
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< 1 minute readThe thing about talking grandiose self-serving bollocks is that not only does it expose your fundamental hollowness, but the fundamental meaninglessness of what you said may well also be exposed. Late last month, as the IPL scrabbled towards its inevitable postponement, the most eye-poppingly you-don’t-even-believe-this-yourself justification for continuing came from
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2 minute readIt’s very early May and it basically feels like winter, but we’re already well on the way to establishing the three divisions that will comprise the second phase of this year’s County Championship. (Here’s an explanation of how the Championship and other competitions will work this year.) 18 teams is
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2 minute readWhenever a Test is decided late on the fifth day, there’s much talk about how that kind of tension and excitement wouldn’t happen with four-day Tests. It’s half true. This is why. If you move a deadline, you don’t negate it. Even if a Test match has no fifth day,
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