< 1 minute read In the wake of their victory in the second one-day international against New Zealand, England have forgotten about Test cricket again and are back talking about the 50-over World Cup. Having officially changed policy after the first match, they’ve now officially changed back again. Ben Stokes or someone may or
Continue readingMonth: February 2018
Reece Topley postpones overuse injury for a year
< 1 minute read Reece Topley’s not going to play first-class cricket this year. He’s been injured a lot – stress fractures mostly – so Hampshire asked the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) what they should do. The ECB pretty much said that there’s altogether too much domestic cricket for a pace bowler
Continue readingEngland revert to talking about the importance of preserving Test cricket as “the pinnacle of the sport”
2 minute read In the wake of their defeat in the first one-day international against New Zealand, England have reverted to their traditional position that Tests are the main thing and they don’t really care about anything else. A 4-1 Ashes defeat followed by a 50-over series win encouraged an unprecedented change in
Continue readingAre ODIs irrelevant or a unifying force?
< 1 minute read All this talk of a possible divorce between Test and T20 cricket greatly underestimates cricket’s ability to plough on with much the same structure even though no-one’s really happy. Radical change is not really cricket’s thing. The sport is more of a gelatinous goop that gives to accommodate whatever happens
Continue readingEoin Morgan sees first-class cricket as providing important groundwork for short format success
2 minute read The rarely-sighted White-Clothed Morgan was thought to have been extinct, but there are now hopes that it could return to its habitat at Lord’s as early as this summer. In a week in which Adil Rashid and Alex Hales both pressed pause on their first-class careers, Morgan has once again
Continue readingAlex Hales is not ‘turning his back’ on Test or first-class cricket
< 1 minute read Not least because he isn’t currently a Test cricketer. But that’s not really our point. Imagine you have three important things to do today, but you’re kind of pressed for time. If you’re anything like us, you’ll favour the ingenious solution of doing a really half-arsed job on all three.
Continue readingA report on a 2016 England v Sri Lanka match on which we’ve already reported
2 minute read Ged writes: It was the first day of the 2016 Lord’s Test between England and Sri Lanka. I was honoured to have His Majesty, King Cricket, among my guests that day in the Lower Compton – as reported here by His Majesty himself. As the predictable shower of champagne corks
Continue readingNew Zealand beat Australia 18-14 at sixes
< 1 minute read However, Australia won the fours classification by 19 to 14 and they also scored 20 extras to New Zealand’s 12. The upshot was that Australia won the runs classification by 245 to 243. Wickets also fell – but not enough to be of any real significance. Speaking after the match,
Continue readingWhy is Adil Rashid giving up first-class cricket and becoming a white ball specialist?
3 minute read Because he’s pressed for time. Adil Rashid has signed a white-ball only contract with Yorkshire for the 2018 season. Some will say he’s looking to become a short format specialist because it’ll allow him to buy a bigger car or house or whatever, but that’s missing the point. The point
Continue readingWhich nation is best at cricket? Combined rankings
2 minute read The ICC rankings are a much-maligned attempt to derive some sort of meaning from the international cricket schedule. However, it strikes us that they no longer answer the question for which they were devised. Who’s the best in the world? We now have three different answers: the best Test side,
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