< 1 minute readEngland haven’t had a bowler who commentators can patronisingly refer to as a ‘yeoman’ since Matthew Hoggard got the boot. Tim Bresnan’s from Yorkshire and bowls a bit of swing. Maybe he can step in and be a doughty northern caricature so that the English cricket establishment can reinforce their
Continue reading< 1 minute readNot enough of them anyway. You have to use at least five bowlers in Twenty20. India have been using Harbhajan Singh (great); Zaheer Khan (really good, but occasionally vulnerable in Twenty20); and Ashish Nehra (solid but unspectacular). To make up their remaining overs, they use Yusuf Pathan, who is clearly
Continue reading< 1 minute readEngland’s win over South Africa is proof of the EXTRAORDINARY MOMENTUM that they have gained by losing a game, having one rained off and then winning two. England are pretty much unstoppable now. That’s not to say that they’ll be tearing along down the right path, necessarily. Momentum’s great, but
Continue reading< 1 minute readAn Englishman, an Irishman and a South African walk into a pub. “Aren’t you an England Twenty20 middle-order that inspires a surprising amount of confidence in supporters?” asks the barman. “No,” says the Englishman. “We’re three entirely different people who just happen to be of the same nationalities as the
Continue reading< 1 minute readD Charlton writes: This fox cub was not indifferent to cricket. In fact, he was the opposite: he was different to cricket. So different, in fact, that he wandered into these nets, got tangled up and trapped. Luckily, the cricket club were able to dig out Sussex CCC’s number, who
Continue reading< 1 minute readFrank Duckworth says that if there is a problem with his and Detective Sergeant Lewis’s method of deciding rain-affected games, it is in the fact that the ICC deem five overs to be sufficient to constitute a match. We agree. If we could characterise a five-over minimum requirement as Naomi
Continue reading< 1 minute readMaths wins. You should never try and compete against maths. It’s unconquerable. Despite putting in one of their finest batting performances in either of the short formats, England were comprehensively beaten by maths. Maths unleashed its biggest and most destructive weaponry, the Duckworth-Lewis calculations, which cruelly shuffled figures about until
Continue reading< 1 minute readChris Gayle knows why England rarely perform well at these tournaments: “I’m sure they come out here with blood in their eyes.” That can’t help. Even if it doesn’t affect their vision too much, it’s got to be a bit unsettling.
Continue reading< 1 minute readSuresh Raina hit the first Twenty20 international hundred for India. He’ll do well out of that, you’d think. We like Suresh Raina. We like the fact that he plays across the line into the off side. That seems to us to be the most effective way of making yourself look
Continue reading< 1 minute readWell, they’re not great, but that’s largely due to the fact that there are a whole bunch of teams in the tournament rather than because of any massive shortcomings on England’s part. If there were only one team in the tournament, England’s chances would be far better. If there were
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