As assassins go, Sri Lanka’s Rangana Herath is sort of chubby and non-threatening looking. However, after taking five wickets for three runs in 3.3 overs, New Zealand were left feeling like they’d been gummed to death by a capybara. If that weren’t enough, there were two run-outs while he was
Continue readingMonth: March 2014
Oh for complacency to be an option
Stuart Broad cited batting complacency as the main reason for England losing to the Netherlands. Ashley Giles agreed, saying that was the only possible reason for the defeat. “They’re not playing well enough to be complacent,” pointed out Mike Atherton. We’re not as downbeat as you might think about this
Continue readingDeath by seam bowling
We’re not in favour of demonising individuals. But three runs, Jade. Three runs. That’s all that was in it. Couldn’t someone have saved three runs somewhere along the way? Maybe Jos Buttler’s missed stumping proved costly. Would a specialist wicketkeeper have made the difference, or would that merely have meant
Continue readingJames Faulkner can even make Chris Gayle lose his cool
“I don’t particularly like them,” said James Faulkner before Australia played the West Indies. He must positively detest them now. Here’s another Faulkner quote. “If you can do something to upset somebody and upset their team, it goes a long way towards doing well as a group.” He got that the
Continue readingMoeen Ali and “planning for the future”
The concept of ‘planning for the future’ is often used to explain the inclusion of younger players in favour of perhaps superior older players. This preference is often presented as being ‘an investment’. That, on the face of it, is a perfectly valid modus operandi. It gives the sense that
Continue readingAlex Hales gets England’s first T20 hundred – and a surprise win
“It’s all over baby, because this one’s headed to the moon!” You can always rely on Danny Morrison to deliver fitting commentary on the denouement of a compelling match. A few minutes earlier, he’d used the word ‘whippage’. He was on form. So was Alex Hales, who hit the first
Continue readingMoeen Ali v Lasith Malinga
In Cricinfo’s preview, it is suggested that England might target Ajantha Mendis. That is the best plan going: England batsmen targeting a weird spin bowler – England’s batsmen being famously good against weird spin bowlers. But it’s that or try and hit Lasith Malinga for six, so attacking Mendis it
Continue readingEngland’s World T20 campaign so far
There was lightning and then some of you made a decent fist of defining what a ‘ferret’ is. Wine was drunk, commetators were pilloried, Cricinfo scorecards were badmouthed. Business as usual. We feel we’re now right back up to speed in time for the remainder of the tournament. We’re particularly
Continue readingWhat happened in the England v New Zealand match?
We’re going to miss this match, so you’re going to have take up the slack and deliver our usual insightful, in-depth reportage in the comments section yourselves. If you divvy the work up between a few hundred of your pets, we’re sure you can produce something approaching our usual quality.
Continue readingIndia v Pakistan was actually quite, quite rubbish
We can officially reveal that India v Pakistan in the World T20 wasn’t quite interesting enough to prevent keen cricket fans from going out to buy eggs and then out again, a second time, to post something. To put this in context, we would rank posting letters right up there
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