< 1 minute read Every cricketer’s got a ‘thing’. It is immediately apparent that Friedel de Wet’s ‘thing’ is his entirely superfluous bunny hop at the start of his run-up. De Wet cut through England’s lower order like urine through snow and we can only think that it was because most of them were
Continue readingMonth: December 2009
Paul Collingwood goes one better than at Cardiff
< 1 minute read The Cardiff Ashes Test was a great example of how a draw can be exciting. Today, after playing in the snow, eating a roast dinner and having a couple of pints, we would have been happy with a soporific blockathon, but you get what you’re given. Paul Collingwood made a
Continue readingIan Bell doesn’t help himself
< 1 minute read Ian Bell gets some unwarranted abuse, but if Paul Harris bowls a ball that will hit the stumps if it goes straight on, you bloody well get your bat in the way. We distinctly remember Ian Bell leaving a straight one from Shane Warne before now and that was bad
Continue readingGraeme Swann is probably underrated
< 1 minute read Graeme Swann saved England with five wickets and in an earlier pre-referral era, he might have had seven. Not bad for an off-spinner in the first innings of a match. Not bad for an off-spinner in any innings, many say. Maybe Warne and Murali are to blame, but everyone thinks
Continue readingChris Gayle likes Test cricket a little bit
< 1 minute read How would you describe Chris Gayle’s normal on field expression? Like someone’s wiped shit on his sleeve but he’s too tired to do anything about it. How did Chris Gayle look when he got his hundred? He dropped to his knees and started beaming. It seems he does like Test
Continue readingKemar Roach to Ricky Ponting
< 1 minute read Kemar Roach didn’t break Ricky Ponting’s elbow, but Ponting must have been mainlining milk for the past six years for that not to happen. He’s David Dunn to Nasser Hussain’s Mr Glass. Kemar Roach bowls at 90-95mph and when he learns that he should bowl with the wind instead of
Continue readingIs Jacques Kallis a boring batsman?
< 1 minute read Well, maybe a bit, but Jacques Kallis’s reputation seems to be etched in stone now and nothing he ever does will change it. “He just accumulates,” said Nasser Hussain shortly after Kallis passed 100. ‘Didn’t he drop to one knee and thock the ball over the boundary at one point?’
Continue readingAshwell Prince is “organised”
< 1 minute read We’ve heard it a few times this morning: Ashwell Prince is “organised”. This means that he is patient and a bit boring. It’s a great cricket euphemism. You could just as easily describe him as “compact” which means much the same. But for the referrals system, Prince would also have
Continue readingIndia win colossal tussle between bat and bat
< 1 minute read We haven’t actually seen any of the ludicrously high scoring India v Sri Lanka one-day match. This is just as well, because if we’d witnessed all the breathtaking strokeplay, we might find it more difficult to be properly downbeat about the whole thing. Out of 13 bowlers used, Harbhajan Singh
Continue readingThe four best bowlers over the next five years
2 minute read Picking the bowlers was much harder than picking the batsmen and all-rounders. We’re not going to pretend that we’re 100% happy with what we’ve come up with because that would be dishonest and we save the dishonesty for getting out of social events. Dale Steyn, South Africa, age 26 We’ve
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