5 minute read R Ashwin is a man who very much ploughs his own furrow. We like this. We like R Ashwin. Recently R Ashwin went to Devon. The world of cricket has changed a lot in quite a short period. It’s hard to put the change into words, but basically the top
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< 1 minute read As an elite cricketer, you can approach your cricket however you want. The important thing is that no matter what approach you take, you have to tell everyone you’re being positive and aggressive and dominant. In cricket, certain words are right and certain other words are wrong. We’ve lost count
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3 minute read Where did we get this idea that every trophy has to be a lab experiment, measuring and weighing every facet of excellence? In the immediate aftermath of defeat, Virat Kohli said that in future the World Test Championship final, “has to be a test of character over three Tests.” Beaten
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< 1 minute read It’s not a complicated thing. When you win a Test match, you’ve conquered not just the opposition but also time. This makes Test wins a bigger deal. It’s not enough to be better than the other team to win a Test match. You have to be better than them to
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2 minute read Women’s Test matches are almost incomprehensibly rare – as evidenced by the fact that India are currently on a three-match winning streak which began in 2006. (The initial victory was followed by a bumper 2014 in which they played twice.) England’s long format fixture list hasn’t generally been too congested
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3 minute read England have reportedly declined India’s ‘informal’ invitation to cancel the fifth Test at Old Trafford. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) will therefore do what cricket boards always do in these situations: it will schedule exactly the same number of matches within a shorter span of time.
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2 minute read We’re intrigued by the formality of cricket board requests. India have asked England if the whole of the upcoming Test series can be shunted forwards a week or alternatively whether the fifth Test, at Old Trafford, could be cancelled. But they’ve apparently only done this “informally”. So it’s not an
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2 minute read “With all due respect…” people say, or “No offence but…” What follows these phrases is somehow never respectful or inoffensive. England coach and selector Chris Silverwood (we warned you he’d try and become a ‘supremo’) didn’t actually plump for either of those options when speaking about the summer ahead earlier
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2 minute read We tend to think of the ‘bio-bubble’ imposed on touring cricketers as an oppressive, negative thing. But there is an upside – at least from a purely cricket point of view. Thanks to the way the world has been this last year or so, it’s perhaps a little easier for
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< 1 minute read The thing about talking grandiose self-serving bollocks is that not only does it expose your fundamental hollowness, but the fundamental meaninglessness of what you said may well also be exposed. Late last month, as the IPL scrabbled towards its inevitable postponement, the most eye-poppingly you-don’t-even-believe-this-yourself justification for continuing came from
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