< 1 minute read This is a good pitch. It has led to good cricket. A one-day pitch can be flat, because the game progresses with each over, but Test matches progress with the fall of wickets. When a match is progressing, other events other than wickets also matter more. It is how Test
Continue readingMonth: July 2011
Do you like to watch your team bat or bowl?
< 1 minute read Last year, we were going to watch a cricket match with a friend who hadn’t watched the sport in many years. “I only like it when we bat,” he said. We’re off work today and we’re a bit disappointed that England are batting. We prefer cricket when England are bowling.
Continue readingEngland v Sri Lanka Twenty20, Bristol | match report
< 1 minute read D Charlton writes: It was my brother (G Charlton)’s stag do. We went to Bristol and watched the Twenty20. As is customary, he dressed as a morph. And he made some friends. By the end of England’s innings, the bloke at the back had said: “You’re allowed peanuts in, Orange,
Continue readingAnyone else sick of DRS talk?
< 1 minute read India don’t like some elements of the decision review system (DRS) and their refusal to use it might at some point come back to haunt them. Okay, we get it. Does the schadenfreude really have to be so obviously primed for deployment? We also have issues with the term ‘DRS’.
Continue readingAustralia have found the new Warne
< 1 minute read South Australia off-spinner, Nathan Lyon, has been called up to the Australia Test squad after just four first-class matches. Can we be the first to brand him ‘the next Shane Warne’? You have to get that in early with your Aussie spinners these days, what with the rapid turnover and
Continue readingEngland beat the eight men of India
< 1 minute read Hyperbole, but not entirely unwarranted. Sometimes a pint of dour dissatisfaction and a willingness to take the negatives doesn’t do you any harm. India had the misfortune of having three players handicapped by a perennially twangy hammy, a pock-marked elbow and the wild shits. This wasn’t their fault. They also
Continue readingEngland need to take their chance
< 1 minute read We well remember the first Test of India’s last tour, which is weird, because we were in Canada for all but the final day. But it’s that final day that’s important here. Nine wickets down, MS Dhoni blocked the shit out of it and for England, that was the difference
Continue readingGet The Wall on the board
< 1 minute read It’s not the usual way round, but it makes a lot of sense if you follow cricket. Rahul Dravid should be on the Lord’s honours board. And now he is. After Dravid made his hundred, there were a lot of people implying that he has played in the shadow of
Continue readingWas Kevin Pietersen out caught at leg slip for 49?
< 1 minute read If you answered ‘yes’ to that question, you’re wrong. Kevin Pietersen was not out on 202 when England declared. The consensus seems to be that Pietersen probably should have been given out when he tucked the ball down to Rahul Dravid, but we care more about what happened after that.
Continue readingZaheer Khan Operation Greggs latest
< 1 minute read Bert has just left a comment drawing attention to Zaheer Khan’s performance this morning, pondering whether Operation Greggs has been put into practice. Operation Greggs involves plying Zaheer with meat and tatty pies until he’s bowling at Praveen Kumar pace. Bert is right to raise this possibility, but it is
Continue reading