< 1 minute readWe’re a bit worried about Andrew Flintoff. Not: ‘Oh my God, there’s a badger in the back seat of the car AND HE’S LOOKING RIGHT AT ME’ worried, but worried nonetheless. When he was taking his wickets against the West Indies on Friday, he did some posing. We’re not massively
Continue readingCategory: England
Andrew Flintoff’s hat trick against West Indies
< 1 minute readOne-day hat tricks tend to be fun rather than jaw dropping, but it’s still very good to see Andrew Flintoff taking wickets. For all Flintoff’s good bowling, wickets are too rare and there needs to be more of this. We made two rather obvious conclusions after the big man dismissed
Continue readingEngland one day performances against West Indies
< 1 minute readEngland might not be the best 50 over side and they might not be the best Twenty20 side, but take them on at Fifty46.2, Fifty20 or Twenty-nine29 at your peril. They’re producing stunning performances in some of the newer formats. This evidence is scant enough to draw far reaching conclusions
Continue readingOpening batsmen and the first powerplay
2 minute readThe reduced nature of today’s match demanded he play in a different way, but of late England have been playing Andrew Strauss in an ‘anchor’ role as one of their opening batsmen. This seems to be a colossal misunderstanding of one-day cricket in our eyes. The role of the anchor
Continue readingCharles Colville is fantastically annoying
< 1 minute readCharles Colville is that nitpicking kind of sports follower who finds fault with everything and believes that minor details decide matches. He’s also a reactionary numbnuts. Colville is Sky’s second string presenter. He gets the highlights shows and the non-England matches. He’s a public schoolboy with a bizarrely creased brow
Continue readingEngland win the World Cup
< 1 minute readEngland’s cricketers are so good, it wasn’t even a surprise that they won the World Cup. They’re the best team in the world. They won 17 matches on the bounce before losing to Australia having already qualified for the final. They won the final (as World Cup winners are wont
Continue readingPromising English fast bowlers like Sajid Mahmood
2 minute readEngland are generally impatient with promising young players. They bring them in, everyone who can voice an opinion takes it in turns to daub them in excrement and then it takes six years for the smell to wear off. Let’s make a comparison. Sajid Mahmood and Mitchell Johnson were born
Continue readingSteven Davies is a wicketkeeper and he WILL open the batting
< 1 minute readAlthough we made Steven Davies one to watch at the start of last summer, we had it in mind that we’d be watching him for a bit longer before he appeared in international matches. Andy Flower said this week that if Davies plays in the one-day matches, he’ll open the
Continue readingSteve Harmison has one day to bowl his way back
2 minute readIf there’s one thing England need more than anything else, it’s a fast bowler. If there’s one thing Steve Harmison isn’t at the moment, it’s a fast bowler. The good news for Harmison is that nobody else is either, so all he really needs to address is that ‘at the
Continue readingWhat is genuine pace?
< 1 minute readIn cricket, ‘genuine pace’ is usually 90mph (144kph) plus. If a bowler has ‘genuine pace’, it means he bowls quickly, even though the words themselves don’t really mean that. We’ve all got to stop talking about ‘genuine pace’. 36mph is a genuine pace, after all. What pace isn’t genuine? One
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