2 minute read In recent years there has been much talk about how county cricket hasn’t been producing spin bowlers. A corollary of this is that county batsmen have been facing less spin. With just a bit of a nudge, the latter becomes something that can be exploited. This year in the County
Continue readingMonth: September 2016
Jonathan Trott and no ice age
< 1 minute read A lot of you will have assumed that England’s domestic 50-over competition had been and gone. The group stages barely outlasted July and the semi-finals took place three weeks ago. The final, however, was scheduled for the arse end of the season, long after anyone could remember what preceded it.
Continue readingWhy England have selected Gareth Batty
2 minute read “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.” At the age of 38, we have genuinely never been fitter in our entire life. We had however assumed that our chance of playing international cricket had passed. Not so! Almost as if England were Australia and Gareth
Continue readingThis is not about the England squad for the Bangladesh tour
< 1 minute read We can’t remember what time our own email goes out. Is it 11am? We could just check the timestamp on an old one, we suppose – but who’s honestly got time to do that? We suspect it’s actually 10am, but on the offchance it’s an hour later, here’s a link
Continue readingI Don’t Like Cricket, I Hate It – the city-based T20 edition
3 minute read A semi-regular feature in which we ask Prince Prefab about cricket – even though he hates cricket. We are in bold. Prince Prefab is not. We were talking about fat cricketers last time around. It was pointed out to us that the team that won this year’s T20 competition ‘likes
Continue readingThe County Championship state of play a few crucial minutes before the end of the second day
2 minute read We could wait until the end of the day’s play before giving the latest round of County Championship matches a mid-point once-over, but why wait? Whatever we write will be out of date soon enough anyway. Might as well allow it to become so almost instantly. Keep on Keaton on
Continue readingWhat is the point in the County Championship?
2 minute read Was it a batting point or a bowling point? Was it one arising from a win, or did it come about through a draw? The dream scenario would be for it to have come about thanks to a penalty for a slow over rate, but neither Middlesex nor Yorkshire has
Continue readingCity-based T20 and the art of forcing windows
3 minute read Independent websites are meant to provide a rapid response to news stories, telling the world how things should be based on an unshakeable sense of what is right and what is wrong. However, we long ago concluded that when it came to stories about what might happen to the structure
Continue reading‘We played like pretty boys there at one stage’ – Trevor Bayliss
< 1 minute read It’s been very humid in the North-West these last few days. That probably didn’t have any impact on the outcome of the T20 International between England and Pakistan but we haven’t got much to say about the cricket so thought we’d flesh out this piece by talking about the weather
Continue readingI Don’t Like Cricket, I Hate It – county attendances and world record scores
2 minute read A semi-regular feature in which we ask Prince Prefab about cricket – even though he hates cricket. As we speak, the team in first place in the County Championship has played 12 matches, won four and drawn eight. What do you make of that? I know what you’re trying to
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