< 1 minute readThe great tragedy of England’s six-man bowling attack is that Gary Ballance never gets to bowl. We reckon that Joe Root and Keaton Jennings are likely to get on before him as well, so realistically he’s ninth choice. England will need to have an extraordinarily bad day before we see
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The hundreds and five-fors rating – why Moeen Ali is England’s best player
< 1 minute readFurther to yesterday’s debate about the identity of England’s best player, here’s one possible way of rating them We made the point yesterday that people shouldn’t blindly accept that Joe Root is England’s best player because he only regularly contributes in one facet of the game. We then a touch
Continue readingHow long until someone suggests Moeen Ali is battling to keep his Test spot?
2 minute readIt feels like one of those rare moments when very few people are talking about whether or not Moeen Ali will be able to keep his place in the England side. While many all-rounders benefit from being able to contribute in two separate disciplines, the beardster always seems to be
Continue readingMoeen Ali and Stuart Broad follow by example
< 1 minute readWith their feisty batting in the morning and a pair of wickets each, Moeen Ali and Stuart Broad truly delivered non-captains’ performances. This is what good team members do. They set an example for the captain to follow. It’s like they always say: he who leads the leader slightly reduces
Continue readingJoe Root sinks a few and then wanders off on his own
< 1 minute readIf Joe Root’s going to try and lead by example, he might want to check whether anyone’s actually following him. If no-one does, then we’re afraid it’s just plain old ‘batting well’ – which is what he always used to do anyway. What kind of captaincy is that? If you’re
Continue readingBBC to show “some” live cricket from 2020 as highlights move from Channel 5
2 minute readThe England and Wales Cricket Board has recently accepted that it needs to get some live cricket onto free-to-air TV. The question most of us have been asking is what constitutes “some”. From 2020 (appropriately enough) the BBC will be showing two men’s and one women’s T20 internationals each summer.
Continue readingLiam Livingstone’s golden duck was one of the finest
2 minute readLiam Livingstone’s England debut was pretty spectacular. He didn’t just fail to display his talent to a wider audience, he actively concealed it. He dropped a catch; mishit everything, including the one boundary that he hit; bust his bat; and then got run out. He also found time to enrage
Continue readingAB de Villiers plays decisive innings to win first T20 for England
2 minute readA real man of the match performance from AB de Villiers won England the first T20 international against South Africa. The greatest sportsman who ever lived ate up 58 balls in making an unbeaten 65. If the innings hinted at a two-paced pitch, England’s batsmen only noticed one of them
Continue readingEngland play South Africa in a pretty meaningless T20 international and Bob isn’t playing
< 1 minute readWe said you were going to start noticing everyone going mental about Mason Crane. Today marks an obvious step-up in mentalgoing as it seems highly likely the leg-spinner will make his international debut. Indirectly referring to him, AB de Villiers grappled with the meaning of the word ‘unknown’. “A few
Continue readingThere was a rumour that England had ‘solved’ one-day cricket
< 1 minute readNot the case. It was perhaps true that they’d solved modern one-day cricket… but then they came up against Pakistan. As we said the other day, Pakistan don’t care what year it is. They don’t care how other people are approaching one-day cricket these days, they just do their own
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