< 1 minute read Pakistan. Is there any sporting team in the world for which the link between sound preparation and performance is less meaningful? Having lost what was arguably the best new ball attack of its time as a result of that spot fixing thing, Pakistan rebuilt their bowling around Saeed Ajmal. Being
Continue readingCategory: Pakistan
Mop-up of the day – stealth, Siddle, celebrations and social media
2 minute read First up, Pakistan v Australia where the ‘home’ side appear to be doing a reasonable job of putting a score on the board. It’s always hard to tell what’s a decent first innings total, but with Pakistan’s flaky batting, you reckon they’d be pretty happy already. Stealth The major contributor
Continue readingPakistan’s 2015 World Cup strategy
< 1 minute read Same as ever really. Just sort of hope that everything magically works itself out. Shahid Afridi is a tremendously good one-day bowler, but you’d hope to see a stronger attack alongside him. Seven foot Mohammad Irfan is the novelty, while Junaid Khan is perhaps the class. But it’s the batting
Continue readingVent your feelings about Ravi Shastri
< 1 minute read In a recent comment, Bert revealed that he had something of earth-shattering importance to say about Ravi Shastri arising from this week’s Cricket Badger (sign up here). Unfortunately, he didn’t have a place to say it. Let this be that place. It also occurred to us that many of you
Continue readingThe ICC flexes its elbow muscles
< 1 minute read Well this is news. Pakistan’s Saeed Ajmal has been banned from bowling. Ajmal was tested once before and had his action cleared. But not this time. This time he has been found guilty of the greatest crime in cricket. People will whisper the word whenever he is near and he
Continue readingIndia v Pakistan was actually quite, quite rubbish
< 1 minute read We can officially reveal that India v Pakistan in the World T20 wasn’t quite interesting enough to prevent keen cricket fans from going out to buy eggs and then out again, a second time, to post something. To put this in context, we would rank posting letters right up there
Continue readingShahid Afridi is still in form
< 1 minute read Every batsman suffers the ebb and flow of form. Most will alter their approach when out of form, taking fewer risks in the knowledge that they aren’t middling it. Shahid Afridi never alters his approach and being as his approach amounts to little more than essaying wild, body-convulsing heaves at
Continue readingRolling the Shahid Afridi dice
< 1 minute read If there is a point to Shahid Afridi – and really, his genius is all about absolute commitment to joyous, unfocused, futile pointlessness – then it is that he should mishit sixes to win matches. That is what happened today. India and Pakistan have much in common, but they also
Continue readingSo, that Pakistan win, eh?
< 1 minute read Okay, let’s do this. Let’s write a 200-word article in which we somehow find a new way of emphasising how wonderful the third Test match between Pakistan and Sri Lanka was for readers who already know precisely how wonderful it was and who probably followed the match much more closely
Continue readingOrchestration and delusion
< 1 minute read After losing the first Test to Pakistan, South Africa captain Graeme Smith said: “It should hurt. But this team has too much ability to make this a habit.” We immediately thought about the distinction between confidence and delusion and how the only real difference is what happens afterwards. These seemed
Continue reading