2 minute readLet’s overlook all the trivial details, like the omission of England’s best Twenty20 batsman and the retirement of their best-ever Twenty20 bowler (one name in particular crops up very frequently in this list) and instead focus on whether Jos Buttler should emerge with England 26-3, 32-4 or 38-5. It might
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Vivisection on England’s World T20 squad
2 minute readIt’s not dead yet, but let’s take our cleaver and dice it anyway. It’s only a matter of time. Batting No Kevin Pietersen, the man of the tournament the only time England won a big competition, so who’s going to pick up the slack? Well not Joe Root. He’s got
Continue readingDemanding loyalty or earning support
2 minute read‘How about we put together a nice cosy environment where everyone goes along with everything Alastair says?’ Imagine we’re not talking about cricket for a second and put yourself in a position where someone’s just said that to you. How do you feel? Do you think that sounds like a
Continue readingThe art of being a team player, Pietersen-style
2 minute readIn our experience, the employees most likely to be considered ‘team players’ are the obedient, unquestioning ones. Management may make great show of inviting feedback – and they may honestly believe that they’re open to it – but the truth is that no-one makes a decision thinking it is the
Continue readingHow do you carry out long-term planning? (a Pietersen post)
2 minute readRemember when England dropped Nick Compton? At the time, we thought maybe they were getting a little bit ahead of themselves. People said Joe Root was amazing and there were loads of other amazing batsmen queuing up to play for England and come on, come on, bring us the future;
Continue readingKevin Pietersen and the lost specifics
2 minute readGranted, we work for them, but we’ve been very impressed with Cricinfo recently – specifically with regards to their near-refusal to report on the latest ‘Kevin Pietersen situation’. They’ve pretty much restricted themselves to one ‘it’s being reported that senior figures are to meet on Tuesday to decide the future
Continue readingTravelling without wheels
2 minute readIt’s hard to pinpoint precisely when the final wheel fell off. It was probably a couple of months ago, but England’s cricketers have had to continue shoving “it” along anyway. No wonder they ended up going round in circles. It’s not been the best tour. In a vain effort to
Continue readingHonestly, you go for one lunchtime pint…
< 1 minute readAnd England give their coach the boot. At least that’s the case according to ‘reports’. We’re not actually suggesting that the two events are linked. We’re just struck by the fact that we’ve been sitting around checking the cricket news once every four minutes for the whole of the last
Continue readingWhere are we up to with ‘the draft proposal’?
< 1 minute readWe ask that not even knowing whether it’s still a draft or not? When does a draft proposal become an official proposal? When they actually come to vote on it? Presumably that’ll only happen once everything’s been thrashed out, in which case official proposal status will be a transient and
Continue readingOf entrenchment and disillusion
< 1 minute readIt doesn’t really matter which format gave rise to it, no-one wants to see a headline reading ‘Australia’s mastery entrenched’, which is what we just saw over at Cricinfo. Nothing good is ever entrenched. Tuesday night pub night isn’t entrenched, despite having persisted for over a decade. Nor is our
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