4 minute read “It could be really entertaining, like that 2005 series, which is what made me fall in love with cricket. The prospect of that is really exciting.” – Ollie Pope, February 2023. Bless him, he’s excited. He’s also completely wrong. The fundamental mistake that Ollie Pope has made here is a
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6 minute read There aren’t many things in cricket more entertaining than a duck. A batter slowly walks out to try and make some runs and then slowly walks back again having failed to do so. It’s a miniature tragedy. Great ducks come in many different flavours. There’s the duck you were expecting
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6 minute read Our annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the winners. Up until now we’ve always recognised players for their batting or their bowling or both. This year, something else has swayed
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4 minute read Last week Rehan Ahmed became England’s youngest debutant and soon after the youngest men’s Test debutant to take a five-wicket haul. But just how young is he really? Age is famously just a number (in this case 18), so maybe we can get a clearer perspective on his youth by
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7 minute read Is Test cricket dying because it’s unsuited to modern life? Or is it being allowed to die because it’s harder to monetise? Doom-mongering administrators often talk like the world’s moved on from Test cricket. They say no-one’s interested any more and nothing can be done to save the format. They
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7 minute read Don Bradman famously averaged 99.94 in Test cricket – but did you know he had a hot streak? Between his second and penultimate Tests, The Don averaged 104.13. We’re being facetious, but you get our point: there are many ebbs and flows in a Test career and sometimes when we
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2 minute read We do a podcast with Dan Liebke in which we revisit the funnier moments of historic Ashes series. It’s called The Ridiculous Ashes and the latest series, focusing on England’s memorable 2013 win, is now underway. Have a listen! (Or don’t, if you’re busy. It’s not going to be significantly
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6 minute read We did this last year, reasoning that a collage of moments from England’s home season might somehow paint a broader picture of where they stand right now. It feels like it does a little bit – but then who knows what’ll come next. New dawns are widely regarded as immaculately
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5 minute read Jason Roy isn’t at his best. He’s not even in a place where he can try and bat at his best. How can a white ball specialist like him get back into good batting form these days? Let’s start in the obvious place with a story about a speed skater.
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8 minute read England were a one-day team who didn’t know how to top 300 – didn’t even dare to try. Eoin Morgan turned them into the best flat track batting side there’s ever been. It’s worth taking stock of the scale of that transformation and the conviction of the captain who achieved
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