3 minute readNow that everyone’s played four matches, the 2026 County Championship is starting to take shape. The shape it is taking is that of the 2025 County Championship. No, really. The top five currently looks like this. Which isn’t really so radically different to how things finished last year. In fact
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2 minute readOllie Robinson hasn’t always seemed fully aware of what he needs to do (or not do) if he wants to play for England again. Our favourite recent quote was about how he hasn’t played for the national side since the 2024 Ranchi Test: “Apparently I fell out with the England
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2 minute readFour weeks into the County Championship and most teams have only played three times. It’s therefore no surprise that four-match Warwickshire find themselves top of the table. They have achieved this after notching one win – exactly the same number as Hampshire, who are bottom. That isn’t to say that
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2 minute readEngland always say they want competition for places, but whenever they actually have it, everyone gets all impatient and demands that they hurry up and make the change right now. Somerset’s James Rew will wind up in England’s Test team eventually. Is there any harm in waiting for the right
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3 minute readA fortnight into the County Championship and it’s hard to weigh the performances of several England Test hopefuls. In many cases who they play for seems to have had almost as much influence on outcomes as how they’re playing. Take, for example, Jamie Smith. This time last week we pointed
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3 minute readJamie Smith earned himself a mention in our previous article about which England Test players might get the boot for the next Test. We had him down as someone who’d need to play very badly in early season to lose his place, so a match-saving 132 for Surrey presumably keeps
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5 minute readWe are absolutely adamant that England cannot possibly withstand public and media appetite for change in the wake of the Ashes drubbing. (Does 4-1 actually qualify as a drubbing given the three previous scorelines Down Under were all worse than that?) One way or another, rightly or wrongly, action must
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3 minute read“In terms of skulls… how many skulls? Do you think?” There are plenty of England fans and a good few in the cricket press who have a Tom Wambsgans-esque appetite for skulls right now. England lost the Ashes and no-one has been sacked. It’s an unusual scenario. The boring story
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6 minute readTop level cricketers really care about what they do. Caring is the basic fuel for their careers. But whether it’s an Iranian gasfield, a Tesla Cybertruck battery or merely the giving of shits, sometimes fuel can also finish you. Part of an international coach’s job is therefore to protect players
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3 minute readThe ECB briefly banned all players with England central contracts from speaking to the media this week. What did they think would happen? Did they honestly expect one of them to say something interesting? The ban’s since been lifted – probably on the basis that its mere existence made the
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