< 1 minute read If we’d have bothered writing a Champions Trophy preview, we might have had India down as fair weather favourites. It’s as much the lack of alternatives as anything else. India have their weaknesses, but despite the absence of some extraordinarily familiar faces they’re experienced and they play to their strengths.
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Zaheer Khan’s sports lounge
< 1 minute read We’re not entirely sure what a sports lounge is – it sounds oxymoronic – but Zaheer Khan’s opened one. It’s called Toss Sports Lounge. It’s not really selling itself is it? The other day, Zaheer was asking people to come up with a tagline for his new venture. Guys, am
Continue readingChris Gayle’s 17 sixes were no great surprise
< 1 minute read The worth of a Twenty20 player cannot be measured via a single innings. That’s a mistake many people make – they confuse aberrations with excellence. It’s therefore worth underlining the sheer inevitability that it would be Chris Gayle who would break the record for the highest individual score in the
Continue readingDelhi Daredevils’ big mistake
< 1 minute read Since they added extra teams, the IPL now takes even longer to take shape. Relatively speaking, it’s still early days, but thankfully one team is doing badly enough that it is actually worth remarking upon. Step forward Delhi Daredevils. After helping Delhi Daredevils to their feet again, we examined them
Continue readingThe best players for a fantasy IPL team
< 1 minute read We selected a fantasy IPL team on Cricinfo and were about to set up a league so that people could compete against us when we suddenly thought: ‘No, wait, this is bollocks.’ Do you want to know who the best players are for a Cricinfo fantasy IPL team? It’s whoever
Continue readingTwo things wrong with the 2013 IPL
< 1 minute read Let’s start slowly. We’ve plenty of time. Two things for now. More may follow. 1. Adam Gilchrist is playing Adam Gilchrist is about 110 years old. More importantly, he is not a cricketer. He was once, but he isn’t any more. No cricket competition should field people who aren’t cricketers.
Continue readingShikhar Dhawan and his moustache
< 1 minute read Our facial hair says ‘couldn’t be bothered shaving’. Shikhar Dhawan’s says ‘I take enormous pride in my moustache’. Hair can build up like limescale or mould or it can be something you cultivate and tend to like a flower. Dhawan’s moustache reminds us of a possibly apocryphal story we heard
Continue readingTest cricket is a bad experiment
2 minute read We don’t mean that in the sense that we’ve tried Test cricket and it should now be abandoned. What we’re saying is that Test cricket is essentially a shoddily-designed framework for testing all sorts of hypotheses and the lack of clarity is what makes it so compelling. Take India v
Continue readingPhillip Hughes against India’s spinners
< 1 minute read Around 95 per cent of cricket statistics are 85 per cent meaningless, but here’s a nice one: In his last 39 deliveries against spin, Phillip Hughes has scored zero runs and been dismissed four times. Earlier in the year, Hughes was overlooked for the Tests against South Africa because the
Continue readingHow will Australia win Tests in India?
< 1 minute read England fans appear to be making the most of Australia’s eight wicket defeat to India, drawing all sorts of conclusions based on this one Test match. This shows a certain lack of awareness when their own team recently lost the first Test in a series in India by nine wickets.
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