< 1 minute read Survival of the fittest. Cricket has mutated again. While an early mutation, 50-over cricket, lives happily side-by-side with Test cricket, there aren’t enough natural resources to support both as well as Twenty20. In a few years time, one of these forms might have gone the way of the dodo. If
Continue readingMonth: October 2007
Alex Loudon retires from cricket
< 1 minute read At the age of 27. Uninjured. This is why we shouldn’t allow Old Etonians to become professional cricketers. What kind of a person gives up professional cricket in favour of ‘a career in business’? Well congratulations, Alex. You’ll be shaking hands with people for a living before you know it.
Continue readingImpotent miserliness or profligate wicket-taking, which wins a one-day match?
< 1 minute read Well obviously wicket-taking miserliness is what you’re aiming for. But there was a fire-and-ice, chalk-and-cheese, black-guy-and-ginger-guy contrast between South Africa’s opening bowlers in the first one-day international against Pakistan. Shaun Pollock didn’t get a wicket but only went for three an over from his full allocation. Makhaya Ntini went at
Continue readingMurali Kartik has a good day
< 1 minute read India beat Australia in a dead match at the end of an overlong one-day series about as far away from a World Cup as it’s possible to be. Could we have some Test cricket now, please? Murali Kartik took 6-27, which are pretty astonishing one-day figures. He then hit 21
Continue readingRikki Clarke joins Derbyshire as captain
< 1 minute read In the county cricket club fashion stakes, Derbyshire languish somewhere near the bottom. Whenever anyone needs to depict the mundane, life’s-going-on-elsewhere nature of early-season County Championship matches, they always pick on Derbyshire. That’s unfair in much the same way as ‘it rains in Manchester’ jibes are. The whole bloody island’s
Continue readingMatthew Hayden attaches a mirror to the back of his bat
< 1 minute read It’s to more closely monitor the ageing process. ‘Still a few wisps of hair at the front there. Not time to retire yet’.
Continue readingCaptain fails to learn second fielding position
< 1 minute read “And you: You go and field at, er, slip.”
Continue readingDilhara Fernando’s slower ball
< 1 minute read Every bowler’s got a slower ball nowadays. Some have got several. Sajid Mahmood bowls about 20, but appears to have absolutely no clue when he should use them or what they’re supposed to achieve. Dilhara Fernando bowls one, as far as we can tell. He spreads his fingers widely so
Continue readingInzy falls four runs short
< 1 minute read Inzamam-ul-Haq managed to get himself stumped four runs short of becoming Pakistan’s highest-ever run-scorer. Patrick will be pleased. We’re of a similar mind. Four runs (or rather their absence) here really doesn’t make a blind bit of difference in terms of great a player he was, although we wouldn’t have
Continue readingGraeme Swann fails to conquer his bail addiction
< 1 minute read For years Graeme Swann has secretly suffered from a rare and debilitating disease. Graeme is addicted to bails. Graeme’s been through a number of treatments – enforced withdrawal, hypnosis, various types of medication – but in the end he just has to accept it. He’s a bail addict and he’ll
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