This was Sam Curran’s face midway through yesterday’s innings at the Rose Bowl. Has anyone in the history of the world ever looked more serious than this? We’re aware that sometimes people’s facial expressions don’t accurately reflect their state of mind, but this is no fleeting thing. This is what
Continue readingMonth: August 2018
How to leave an in-swinger by Keaton Jennings
If you’re going to get out LBW, get out LBW in style. Here’s Keaton Jennings’ four-step guide to doing so. Step one: fail to leap into action Step two: leap into action Step three: start falling over Step four: run away and hope no-one notices
Continue readingShould Jonny Bairstow be freed from the wicketkeeping gloves?
Jonny Bairstow’s been one of England’s few semi-competent batsmen in recent times. This has given rise to the very obvious conclusion that England’s batting woes are pretty much entirely down to him because if he wasn’t keeping wicket he’d be making even more runs. Would Bairstow make more runs if
Continue readingAt least James Vince gives you a focus
Social media has been alive with pleasure this week at the news that James Vince has returned to the England squad. It’s gratifying to see that fans’ views of him have in no way cemented and that there is universal near-desperation to see him given a third chance at Test
Continue readingDo England need a bit more oomph from their opening batsmen?
Last week, writing about Alastair Cook, George Dobell briefly made the case that he maybe isn’t the easiest guy to open the batting with. The gist of the argument is that Cook’s quite a passive batsman and “novice openers see the scoreboard going nowhere and bowlers allowed to settle into
Continue readingWhen Virat Kohli edged to Keaton Jennings – a breakdown of the finest missed catch you’ll ever see
There’s basically nothing left as an England fan other than to become a connoisseur of missed catches. Keaton Jennings failing to make meaningful use of his own hands when Virat Kohli edged the ball to him on 93 was one of the greatest misses we’ve ever seen. There are three
Continue readingFour reasons why you should never challenge England to a collapse-off
India were foolish to challenge England to a collapse-off. No matter who you are, you aren’t going to out-collapse England. Don’t get us wrong, India do have some real collapsing pedigree. Their performance at Lord’s was borderline exceptional, but the spectacular nature of that particular showing shouldn’t distract from the
Continue readingA review of Cricket Captain 2018’s ‘All-Time Greats’ mode
Cricket Captain 2018 is fundamentally the same game as last year. Here’s a review of Cricket Captain 2017 for a broad overview and what follows here is a (not particularly) quick look at All-Time Greats mode, which is one of the new features. We did a review thing about playing
Continue readingCheck out these magnificent beer-carrying cricket bat devices
Ged spotted these in the beer garden bar of The Milk House, Sissinghurst, Kent. He wasn’t sure whether they qualified for our regular feature Cricket Bats In Unusual Places or whether they might give rise to a whole new feature based on The Device. (Somewhat surprisingly, this is actually the
Continue readingThe India batsmen who aren’t making any runs are pretty much the same India batsmen who didn’t make any runs last time around
India have had very much the worse of conditions in this match and they have also been facing some masterful swing bowling. All the same, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that they haven’t really made any runs. Out of interest, we checked which batsmen had played in the Test
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