< 1 minute read Much has been made of the fact that MS Dhoni wants seven batsmen and four bowlers in his Twenty20 side, even though you have to use at least five bowlers. ‘Sacrilege’, people cry. Not really. Batsman number seven might not contribute much, but the value of a specialist bowler isn’t
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Cheteshwar Pujara shows India aren’t short of batsmen
< 1 minute read It’s both sad and joyous that life moves on. Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman are gone, never to return, but that’s because they’re now middle-aged. Their best cricket is behind them and who wants to look forward to ever-lower high points. Far better to step into the unknown. Cheteshwar Pujara
Continue readingCricket’s schadenfreude production line
2 minute read Congratulations, South Africa. Prepare for people to delight in your fall. In recent years, the Test rankings have been a kind of schadenfreude production line. One nation gets to the top and promptly celebrates and then everyone else celebrates even more heartily when the team in question drops down again.
Continue readingYuvraj Singh’s back
< 1 minute read As in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. But he did have cancer. His return is great news. We can’t imagine how it must feel to have gone from being told you have cancer to then being clear and regaining your place in the India team. It’s only
Continue readingBCCI rejects calls for speed limits in residential areas
< 1 minute read Speaking about the decision review system, Sanjay Jagdale, the secretary of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, indicated that his organisation was still unwilling to see it used in all Test matches. “The BCCI continues to believe that the system is not foolproof.” Jagdale may or may not
Continue readingSourav Ganguly’s hair
< 1 minute read If you’ve missed or boycotted this year’s IPL, you have only missed one thing: Sourav Ganguly’s hair. Young Sourav brought himself on to bowl against Delhi and promptly bowled Kevin Pietersen first ball. He then went on a raised-fist jaunt across the field sporting a bizarre bouncing flap of hair.
Continue readingVirat Kohli likes a run chase
< 1 minute read If Virati Kohli ‘batted out of his skins’ against Sri Lanka last month, he can only have batted out of his flesh against Pakistan yesterday, hitting 183 off 148 balls as India chased down 330. There can only be skellington left. But set Kohli another steep run-chase and you wouldn’t
Continue readingTendulkar hits his hundredth hundred and proves nothing to us
2 minute read These sorts of landmarks are like birthdays. They get a lot of attention, but they don’t change much. People whinge about how they’re getting older when it’s their birthday, but the truth is that every day of your life you’re a day older than the day before and your birthday’s
Continue readingWe were there when Tendulkar hit his hundredth international hundred
< 1 minute read We were there, looking at a Cricinfo scorecard, waiting for the number to change. That’s how people watch cricket these days, right? That’s how we experience these supposedly momentous events. We think we speak for most people when we say that we’re glad that’s out of the way. A hundred
Continue readingRahul Dravid: the barometer of class
3 minute read Looking through the archives, we’ve written surprisingly little about Rahul Dravid. Many of his best innings predate the site and also – partly as a result of that – we’ve always just assumed that everyone knew how good he was. Forward defensives They call him The Wall. It’s meant as
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