3 minute readWe love Sophie Ecclestone, but today’s misfortune feels very on-brand. Rightly or wrongly (but probably, if we’re brutally honest, more rightly than wrongly) Ecclestone became the public face of England’s fitness and fielding frailties when she refused to do an interview with critic Alex Hartley during last winter’s Ashes. Since
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3 minute readHeather Knight’s year began with an Ashes defeat in which England lost every match. It then progressed to losing the captaincy, after which she utterly knackered one of her legs. Never mind taking a step forwards, a sidestep would have been nice. (Not that she’d have been capable with that
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7 minute readSometimes we do this thing where we sift the summer’s events, pick out the more striking moments and then see whether we can perceive a vague yet coherent picture. There’s no analysis here. We offer no conclusions. At best, it’s an exercise that might get you half a step closer
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3 minute readR Ashwin has retired from the IPL so that he can play in overseas leagues. It strikes us that the wording of Cheteshwar Pujara’s recent announcement was conspicuously specific too, stating that he was retiring from “all forms of Indian cricket.” What are your plans, lads? “They say every ending
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7 minute read“It’s going to be hot. It’s going to be flat. Who’s going to break first? Is it going to be us, or is it going to be them?” That’s what Justin Langer asked his team midway through the Boxing Day Test during the 2018/19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. The answer was unequivocal,
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4 minute readAfter the Lord Mayor’s Show comes a cart to clear up all the horseshit. That is at least a very different thing from what preceded it, rather than merely a shorter version of the same thing that’s consequently far more limited in scope. In that sense The Hundred can at
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7 minute readNo other sport does all-the-fun-of-the-fair climaxes like cricket. In large part that’s due to the complexity of the game and the way specific goals shift from ball to ball (or even within the span of a single delivery). It’s also the fact that these most crucial moments invariably involve the
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4 minute readWe lost a few things to the London weather yesterday: most obviously 20-odd overs, which is no big deal because they can make up the time on days two, three, four and five; far more significantly, Chris Woakes fell victim to the wet, soft, slippy outfield. Woakes had already expressed
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2 minute readCan Ben Stokes really carry on doing all of the things? No, apparently not. Is Jasprit Bumrah at risk of injury if he plays again? Yes, apparently he is. Is anyone on either side fit enough to bowl in the fifth Test? Um. Maybe. Sort of. Although the way it’s
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4 minute read“Pain is just an emotion,” Ben Stokes told his men at Old Trafford – a nonsense claim just a few small steps below Dalton’s standard-setting “pain don’t hurt” in Road House. For those that don’t know, Dalton is a world famous bouncer in a world where bouncers can be world
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