< 1 minute read Mark Wood’s duff ankle means he won’t play the third Test against Pakistan. So who should replace him? Over at Cricinfo, Andrew McGlashan argues that Liam Plunkett is the logical choice. Being as Chris Jordan was only a late call-up to replace Steven Finn, Plunkett is the next pace bowler
Continue readingMonth: October 2015
Lord’s Cricket Ground tour – not a match report
2 minute read Bert writes: This website has a number of obsessions. Cricket is one, obviously, but there’s cats and fat cricketers and ankylosing spondylitis and all sorts of other stuff. And there is the apostrophe, with particular reference to the correct use thereof. The thing is, I don’t think this is especially
Continue readingIs it okay to drop Jos Buttler?
2 minute read Yeah, why not? It’s not like he’s scoring any runs at the minute. We’re also a great believer in the redemptive power of “I could do better than that.” Have you ever found yourself believing you weren’t qualified to carry out a given task, only for someone else to complete
Continue readingWahab Riaz achieves the impossible
< 1 minute read The formula for deciding on the man of the match is as follows: Which team won? Which of that team’s batsmen scored the biggest hundred? And that’s your man of the match. In the event that no-one made a hundred, you pick the guy who took most wickets. However, in
Continue readingEngland’s batsmen roll onto thorny hedge cuttings
< 1 minute read Good bowling exacerbates uncertainty. This is a very inexperienced England batting line-up and it therefore has good cause for self-doubt – particularly in unfamiliar conditions. When confronted with the contrasting threats of Wahab Riaz and Yasir Shah, it was no surprise that it collapsed in on itself like a cheap
Continue readingJoe Root’s back
< 1 minute read Not as in ‘returned’ because he hasn’t been away. We’re more worried that he might have ankylosing spondylitis. If Alastair Cook doesn’t get the runs, Joe Root will, and if Joe Root doesn’t get them, then England fans better hope that the team can cobble together a good number of
Continue readingMisbah-ul-Haq untroubled by Venn diagrams
< 1 minute read If Bryce McGain to Ashwell Prince and Dale Steyn to Paul Collingwood made the beast with four backs, their progeny would be Misbah-ul-Haq against England in Dubai. Misbah is a man of extremes, as capable of batting for a draw when there isn’t one on offer as he is of
Continue reading
England unclear on whether or not Ben Stokes has been suffering ‘the wild shits’
< 1 minute read You’d think with all their well-paid medical staff they’d be able to distinguish between the wild shits and the common-or-garden variety, but it doesn’t seem to be the case. Alastair Cook said: “He’s had a 24-hour bug, he didn’t look very well yesterday apparently but he’s here now and we’ll
Continue readingVirender Sehwag: a magnificent bastard who regularly induced pant-smearage in bowlers
< 1 minute read Virender Sehwag retired from a fairly broad range of formats today. It’s about as close as you ever get to a proper retirement in this day and age when the Ghosts of Legends Past can regularly be seen haunting cricket grounds throughout the world. We have pretty much no time
Continue readingShoaib Malik belatedly begins to explain the seemingly inexplicable
< 1 minute read Shoaib Malik’s always been hugely popular with a certain segment of Pakistan fans and we’ve never remotely understood why. He’s always seemed so nondescript. He’s long had some sort of PR machine behind him which, as well as skewing our perception of his popularity a touch, may have won over
Continue reading