< 1 minute read“They are a pretty impressive attack,” said Marcus Trescothick after Somerset played Pakistan. He had plenty of time to assess the bowlers’ worth because he scored a hundred. The fact that he is 40 and now bats in glasses due to his deteriorating vision shouldn’t in any way be held
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Two Pakistan players to watch this summer
< 1 minute readWe know you all come here for our singular insight. As such, we’re going to name a couple of Pakistan players you might want to keep an eye on in coming weeks. These are players you might not know so well, but we think they might have something of an
Continue readingMohammad Sami is still playing cricket – as are India and Pakistan
< 1 minute readIndia are playing Pakistan. It’s a big deal. This website being what it is, the only appropriate course of action was for us to wander out halfway through. At the time of writing, Mohammad Sami – Mohammad Sami! – had taken two wickets in two balls as India set about
Continue readingIndia v Pakistan – five things to make subheadings out of
< 1 minute readEveryone likes a listicle – and how’s that headline for clickbait? Pretty brazen, eh? They’ll be flocking here from Twitter when they see that auto-tweeted at some point in the next hour. Pakistan still can’t bat Teams do get bowled out in Twenty20. It’s not unheard of. They usually manage
Continue readingMop-up of the day – Hello and goodbye and are you leaving?
< 1 minute readBuoyed by a first innings display in which he took six for a million, Neil Wagner persisted with his innovative attritional shock tactics in the second. He took 1-60. It’s worth noting that Wagner produced this display despite a broken hand. More accurately, he produced this display despite a broken
Continue readingSalman Butt and Mohammad Asif are back
2 minute readAs in ‘returned’. What else would the word ‘back’ mean in that context? It’s not like there’s an ambiguous apostrophe-S in there or anything. Salman Butt and Mohammad Asif both played for Water and Power Development Authority against Federally Administered Tribal Areas in one of those somehat fictional sounding domestic
Continue readingWhen is an omission a rotation and when is it a good old-fashioned drop?
2 minute readThere’s a subtlety to England’s current approach to one-day cricket which may have passed some by. It’s not about ball-wallopery or -whangery, it’s to do with that other key aspect of international cricket – man management. Everyone’s agreed that one of the keys to one-day success is a no-blame culture
Continue readingEngland cricketers never last – why learn lessons when you’ll probably never return?
2 minute readIt’s a truism that the England players will learn from this series defeat to Pakistan. You could actually see it happening before your eyes at times: Jonny Bairstow fighting his impulses or Ben Stokes seemingly devising a batting method on the fly. We just wonder whether these players will ever
Continue readingEngland poised to make some sort of history
< 1 minute readIt might be an unlikely series-levelling victory; more likely it’ll be a defeat. Either way, someone somewhere will make a note and history will be made. History is always being made. On a personal level, we have a history of drinking tea and typing that stretches back at least as
Continue readingShoaib Malik adds to the rich tradition of Pakistani cricketer retirements
< 1 minute readNo-one does retirement quite like a Pakistan cricketer. Mohammad Yousuf’s was a textbook departure, entirely equivocal such that his absence can perhaps only now be considered permanent, some five years later. Or at least it could have been considered permanent if he hadn’t played a number of international matches after
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