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
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When 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
Continue readingJames Taylor – middle order giant
< 1 minute readEngland in UAE middle-order partnership shocker. Who’d have Liam Plunkett (thunk it)? Fours and sixes are all well and good, but it’s important to cater for fans of the nurdle as well. Today was a most nurdlesome day. Nudges, leaves, jabs into the offside, works to the legside – all
Continue readingWahab Riaz achieves the impossible
< 1 minute readThe formula for deciding on the man of the match is as follows: Which team won? Which of that team’s batsmen scored the biggest hundred? And that’s your man of the match. In the event that no-one made a hundred, you pick the guy who took most wickets. However, in
Continue readingEngland’s batsmen roll onto thorny hedge cuttings
< 1 minute readGood bowling exacerbates uncertainty. This is a very inexperienced England batting line-up and it therefore has good cause for self-doubt – particularly in unfamiliar conditions. When confronted with the contrasting threats of Wahab Riaz and Yasir Shah, it was no surprise that it collapsed in on itself like a cheap
Continue readingMisbah-ul-Haq untroubled by Venn diagrams
< 1 minute readIf Bryce McGain to Ashwell Prince and Dale Steyn to Paul Collingwood made the beast with four backs, their progeny would be Misbah-ul-Haq against England in Dubai. Misbah is a man of extremes, as capable of batting for a draw when there isn’t one on offer as he is of
Continue readingShoaib Malik belatedly begins to explain the seemingly inexplicable
< 1 minute readShoaib Malik’s always been hugely popular with a certain segment of Pakistan fans and we’ve never remotely understood why. He’s always seemed so nondescript. He’s long had some sort of PR machine behind him which, as well as skewing our perception of his popularity a touch, may have won over
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