< 1 minute readDunno. Give him a chance? The best players are adaptable, but we can’t shake the feeling that even if Alastair Cook can survive as a one-day batsman, he isn’t an opener. Batsmen sometimes get branded as being ‘openers’ in England, but one-day opening is different. Successful one-day openers generally come
Continue reading< 1 minute readThis is a sad development. The ICC have said that batsmen are no longer allowed to have someone run on their behalf when they get injured or suffer cramp or forget to bring the right shoes. The runner serves a valuable purpose in cricket. He helps create the misunderstandings that
Continue reading< 1 minute readCompetition closed. See here for Oval cricket tickets. We hate doing competitions. Sorting through all the entries sucks hours from our life and we always get stressed out that the winners aren’t going to receive their prizes. This is a good one though. You could win a pair of tickets
Continue reading< 1 minute readDo you know Alan Tyers’ work? You can probably make your own mind up about this book if you do. Crickileaks is what you would expect from him. The fake diary is Alan Tyers’ thing. He’s done them for Cricinfo and The Wisden Cricketer (now The Cricketer) many times before
Continue reading2 minute readGambhir, Sehwag, Tendulkar and Yuvraj aren’t playing against the West Indies, so there were plenty of chances for India’s up-and-coming batsmen to make their mark. Suresh Raina got 82 in the first innings and Harbhajan 70, but other than that it’s all been eights, twelves and fifteens. But batting’s been
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe didn’t even recognise Praveen Kumar when we switched on the first Test between the West Indies and India. His is a familiar face, but we’d never seen him in white clothes before. It had also never really occurred to us just how slowly he bowls. While Ishant Sharma’s pace
Continue reading< 1 minute readBuilding a reputation as a batsman is not unlike being a contestant on the perennially disappointing Nineties game show, The Crystal Maze. You spend your life in the nets, honing your technique and earning crystals and then you get to try and make the most of it in the Crystal
Continue reading< 1 minute readBatsmen always want to play at the top of the order. This might be because they realise that you get more recognition up there. Well we’d like to recognise Ian Bell’s middle-order skills. Runs equal plaudits and while top-order batsmen face the new ball, they can also approach batting however
Continue reading< 1 minute readKevin Pietersen’s out of form. Andrew Strauss has developed a problem against left-arm pace. Those were the stories at the start of yesterday’s play and the evidence came in the form of their recent Test records. When play did occur, Pietersen looked amazing, but he made the grave error of
Continue reading< 1 minute readLots of people have said this, saying Tremlett is more consistent than Stuart Broad and pitches the ball further up. Those things are true, but our point is much simpler: Just look at him. Chris Tremlett is terrifying. It actually doesn’t much matter that he rarely tops 85mph. If you
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