< 1 minute readWell, maybe a bit, but Jacques Kallis’s reputation seems to be etched in stone now and nothing he ever does will change it. “He just accumulates,” said Nasser Hussain shortly after Kallis passed 100. ‘Didn’t he drop to one knee and thock the ball over the boundary at one point?’
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe’ve heard it a few times this morning: Ashwell Prince is “organised”. This means that he is patient and a bit boring. It’s a great cricket euphemism. You could just as easily describe him as “compact” which means much the same. But for the referrals system, Prince would also have
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe haven’t actually seen any of the ludicrously high scoring India v Sri Lanka one-day match. This is just as well, because if we’d witnessed all the breathtaking strokeplay, we might find it more difficult to be properly downbeat about the whole thing. Out of 13 bowlers used, Harbhajan Singh
Continue reading2 minute readPicking the bowlers was much harder than picking the batsmen and all-rounders. We’re not going to pretend that we’re 100% happy with what we’ve come up with because that would be dishonest and we save the dishonesty for getting out of social events. Dale Steyn, South Africa, age 26 We’ve
Continue reading< 1 minute readProbably not. We don’t see Luke Wright getting a great many more runs than Ryan Sidebottom and we don’t see him taking many more wickets than Ian Bell. We quite like him, but bouncing around like a giddy dog does not a Test cricketer make. It would be good if
Continue reading< 1 minute readMakhaya Ntini should make his 100th Test appearance this week. What strikes us about this is that an African nation’s first black cricketer is still playing.
Continue reading< 1 minute readNapier groundsman Phil Stoyanoff was asked if there will be a result in the current Test between New Zealand and Pakistan: “Yes, because both sides have such bad batsmen. That’s my honest opinion, they’re useless.” As this might be considered a bit inflammatory, New Zealand Cricket public affairs manager Stephen
Continue reading< 1 minute readThat’s Chris Gayle’s reputation. We’ve been reading it all week as people say they didn’t know Gayle had it in him to bat the way he did against Australia in hitting 165 not out off 285 balls. Really? You didn’t know that? Are you sure you weren’t just making a
Continue reading< 1 minute readAt first he was all sixes and flowing locks. Now he’s all nudged singles and hair that should be in charge of train timetables; hair you’d happily lend £20 to, safe in the knowledge that it would be returned promptly and possibly even with interest because it had been invested
Continue reading< 1 minute readIf you’re relatively new to cricket, you might think Kevin Pietersen came to prominence because of a shit haircut and an Ashes-winning hundred. You’d be wrong and not just because cricket series are won by bowlers and not by batsmen ensuring a draw in the final Test of a series.
Continue reading