< 1 minute read We did two things wrong in this piece for Cricinfo. We depicted Andrew Strauss as a socially disconnected toff, which is unfair and also something of a cliché. There are two dissatisfied Yorkshiremen in it and having once lived in God’s own county, we hate cricket’s Yorkshire stereotype and fear
Continue readingMonth: August 2011
Fast bowlers from India are still falling away
2 minute read It seems a long time ago that we wrote about India’s young fast bowlers, nodding sagely and approvingly at what was on offer. That’s because it actually was a long time ago and the 26-and-under promise we saw four years ago should be something rather more than that by now.
Continue readingPraveen Kumar’s third dimension
2 minute read Embed from Getty Images One of Test cricket’s greatest strengths over the other formats is how you get to know the players better. We’d seen a great deal of Praveen Kumar before this series, but had no particular opinion about him. This has changed in the last few weeks. First
Continue readingGuess what doesn’t yet exist
< 1 minute read We’ve just been to the supermarket and do you know how many beers there were available that specifically celebrated England’s rise to number one in the Test rankings? None. That’s how many. None beers. The best we could find was McEwans’s Champion Ale and that’s Scottish. We didn’t even see
Continue readingEngland as number one Test nation
2 minute read We don’t have any amazing insights into this, in the unlikely event that that’s why you visit this website. However, what we will say is that it is a measure of England’s progress that we English are being forced to search for new goals. For pretty much our entire life,
Continue readingWhen England made 700 against India
2 minute read There seems to have been a good deal of criticism of England, considering how well they’re doing. We’re not joining in. While Alastair Cook could have accelerated later on, there was also something to be said for the sheer demoralising effect of batting on and on and on. If it
Continue readingAlastair Cook unfazed by Indian tactics
< 1 minute read Teams have used any number of different approaches when trying to get Alastair Cook out in the last year. Pretty much all of them have failed. Of the 2,855 deliveries he’s faced in Test cricket since this time last year, 17 of them have got him out. Today, India tried
Continue readingIndia’s stellar batting line-up
2 minute read So far, it’s been looking a bit Stella – stronger than most, but you’d really rather have something else if at all possible. That said, context is everything in cricket and batting hasn’t been all that easy this summer. England’s bowling has generally been very good, but there have been
Continue readingDo Indian cricketers care about Test cricket and will England win?
2 minute read Despite occasional accusations of journalism, we do not consider ourself part of the British press. We’d like to take this opportunity to distance ourself from two specific themes that are currently appearing in the cricket pages. Indian players don’t care about Test cricket This is a fairly regular subtext to
Continue readingFaith, facts and failure in Test cricket
< 1 minute read Faith is what you need when you don’t have facts. More accurately, faith is what you resort to when you don’t have facts – ‘need’ isn’t the right word. Faith is a way of sticking your head in the sand and even when you’re looking for something at the beach,
Continue reading