< 1 minute read “So, are you any relation to Hamish Marshall?” Writing in his Cricinfo diary, Ross Taylor says someone asked James Marshall that. James and Hamish are identical twins, if you didn’t know. This was either the most admirably, pig-headedly stupid and obvious joke of all time or it was asked by
Continue readingMonth: May 2008
The Old Trafford pitch
< 1 minute read Sportsfreak are running a cricket tipping competition about the England v New Zealand series. We are currently equal second out of 12. For the last Test we used reasoning for precisely one of the questions and got it right. Michael Vaughan has scored bucketloads of runs at Lord’s, so we
Continue readingLatest news from the IPL
< 1 minute read It’s been a while since anyone was interested, so what the fudge is going on over there? Well, everyone’s played either 11 or 12 matches out of 14. Rajasthan Royals are top for whom Mr Ego, Shane Warne, is both captain AND coach. Two points behind them are Kings XI
Continue readingSurrey v Essex Friends Provident Trophy match report
2 minute read The Atheist from Are You A Left-Arm Chinaman? writes: I was excited about going to see my first match of the season. This would be a perfect opportunity to wear my sun-hat without the usual sense of shame associated with over-keen headgear. Although its powers are potent, it didn’t prevent
Continue readingMatthew Hayden has another go at talking
< 1 minute read It never goes well. Matthew Hayden is very poor at executing his talking skills. Thanks to RC for pointing us towards Hayden’s latest attempt in an interview with Cricinfo. Here are some highlights: “I go to the middle, I mark the crease and I squat on the wicket. I feel
Continue readingJacob Oram and his face
< 1 minute read Most teams struggle for all-rounders. In New Zealand they’re ten a penny. If only they could find a couple more half-decent specialist batsmen, they’d be a force to be reckoned with. This new batting line-up’s missing a few of the bigger names, of course, but even those batting absentees dabbled
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Bad light stopped play
< 1 minute read It’s not often we agree with Mark Nicholas, if only because we don’t float through life spouting words like ‘divine’ and ‘exquisite’ every second sentence, but we think he had a point this one time he was commentating over Channel 5 highlights of cricketers walking on and off the field.
Continue readingBrendon McCullum uses his feet
2 minute read Brendon McCullum recently found his feet. Now he’s putting them to good use. If you’ve read the page we just linked to, this might sound kind of familiar. This is the Test version of that post. Brendon McCullum’s had 52 Test innings. In his first 45, he managed two hundreds
Continue readingEngland’s brilliant white kit
< 1 minute read A lot of people are asking whether England’s new Test kit is the whitest ever seen on a cricket field. It isn’t. That honour goes to the outfit worn by Algernon Denby-Farthing in a match for Yorkshire against Kent in 1885. Denby-Farthing was obsessive about the cleanliness of his whites,
Continue readingCricket lunch
< 1 minute read We pretty much know the teams. We pretty much know the tactics. What we don’t know is what the two teams will be feasting on during the first lunch break and who will fare the better. It’s common cricketing courtesy to clap the players when they emerge for the afternoon
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