3 minute read Today was a nice little primer in how to approach Test cricket in Australia. It called for extremes. England didn’t really have any. It was all a bit fast-medium. We blame Steven Finn for this. On England’s last Ashes tour, he was exactly the right kind of bowler for Australian
Continue readingMonth: December 2013
Who is Ben Stokes?
< 1 minute read And what does he look like? Just Google it… You can always rely on Google.
Continue readingScrawniness and self-floggery
< 1 minute read So where are we? No-one knows – which is the way it should be. What we do know is that England could have had one, two and, in theory, three more wickets if they’d caught better. We also know that England’s batting looks lighter than Michael Rasmussen. Stop going on
Continue readingJimmy Anderson doing an impression of Nasser Hussain
< 1 minute read We can only do one impression and it’s an impression of our friend Neal doing an impression of himself. Not only are there very few people who could potentially appreciate it – it also isn’t particularly good. We are therefore filled with admiration for Jimmy Anderson and his note-perfect mimicry
Continue readingTutenkhamen’s Tracksuit and other Christmas cricket books
4 minute read A quick bit of housekeeping before the second Test. We received a review copy of Alan Tyers’ new book a few weeks ago and haven’t yet said anything about it. On a related note, we’ll freely admit to not having read all of the cricket books, so if you’ve any
Continue readingBrendon McCullum hits an actual hundred
< 1 minute read Brendon McCullum is a man whose batting achievements don’t exactly tally with his profile. He’s bolstered his reputation with captaincy and wicketkeeping and the peculiar nature of his one-day assaults, but he basically has a very middling record with the bat. However, he has just scored his eighth Test hundred
Continue readingEngland can’t bat and Australia can’t bat
2 minute read Okay, let’s take stock. England can’t bat and Australia can’t bat. Generalising masks specific truths, but this is actually a fair summary of where we stand. Mo’tchell Johnson has gathered headlines, but England also failed to score off Ryan Harris (forgivable) and shed middle order wickets against Nathan Lyon (probably
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