3 minute readIt may feel like Australia lost the series against Pakistan 4-0, but actually it was only two. No matter how you play, you can’t lose more than two matches when you only play two. This has allowed Michael Clarke to somewhat disingenuously plead that his captaincy shouldn’t be judged on
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The head-wobbling ghosts of Zulfiqar Babar and Yasir Shah
2 minute readIt can be hard to keep up with Pakistan’s playing staff. Mitchell Marsh gets a debut and great tracts of webspace are devoted to him, explaining what this decision means and why it’s such a monumental event. In contrast, Pakistan players ghost into the side and it’s only when they’ve
Continue readingMop-up of the day – stealth, Siddle, celebrations and social media
2 minute readFirst up, Pakistan v Australia where the ‘home’ side appear to be doing a reasonable job of putting a score on the board. It’s always hard to tell what’s a decent first innings total, but with Pakistan’s flaky batting, you reckon they’d be pretty happy already. Stealth The major contributor
Continue readingSteve O’Keefe and Imran Khan
< 1 minute readSteve O’Keefe’s finally been picked to play a Test match for Australia. We mentioned him as far back as 2010 as being a spinner who wasn’t completely rubbish, but who was somehow being overlooked in favour of any number of slow bowlers who were. O’Keefe’s the second spinner, so Australia
Continue readingAlastair Cook v Shane Warne – who’s the bigger idiot?
< 1 minute readWill Alastair Cook learn his lesson? Most people know that it’s incredibly unwise for the England captain to demand that critics be less critical. But not Cook, apparently. He recently said that “something needs to be done” about Shane Warne’s relentless criticism of his captaincy. The headline of Warne’s latest
Continue readingMiddlesex are slightly top
< 1 minute readAfter whipping the first division’s whipping boys, Northamptonshire, with their whipping boy whipping whip, Middlesex are now 19 points ahead of Yorkshire and 22 ahead of Sussex, both of whom have a game in hand. Yorkshire would need to win to go top. Sussex would need to really, really handsomely
Continue readingMichael Clarke and ‘the line’
2 minute readOne of the most annoying things about the Australian cricket team is not its verbal aggression but the players’ relentless self-righteousness about it. Here’s a quote from Michael Clarke that you’ll feel like you’ve read a thousand times before. “I think we play our cricket hard on the field but
Continue readingJames Faulkner can even make Chris Gayle lose his cool
< 1 minute read“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 readingDavid Warner’s good, isn’t he?
2 minute readNobody’s happy about that fact, but we might as well get used to it because when he shuts that toolish mouth and plays cricket, he can score some runs. Diversity One thing we really like about this Australian team is that it’s a lesson to everyone on the importance of
Continue readingRyan Harris versus Lillee’s bag o’ bairns
< 1 minute readIt’s been suggested that this could be Ryan Harris’s last Test. He’s scheduled to have a load of loose knobbles and flakes of bone dug out of his crappy knee shortly after it finishes. Although he’s then got seven months or so to recuperate before Australia’s next Test, he hasn’t
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