< 1 minute read Charles Colville is that nitpicking kind of sports follower who finds fault with everything and believes that minor details decide matches. He’s also a reactionary numbnuts. Colville is Sky’s second string presenter. He gets the highlights shows and the non-England matches. He’s a public schoolboy with a bizarrely creased brow
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England win the World Cup
< 1 minute read England’s cricketers are so good, it wasn’t even a surprise that they won the World Cup. They’re the best team in the world. They won 17 matches on the bounce before losing to Australia having already qualified for the final. They won the final (as World Cup winners are wont
Continue readingPromising English fast bowlers like Sajid Mahmood
2 minute read England are generally impatient with promising young players. They bring them in, everyone who can voice an opinion takes it in turns to daub them in excrement and then it takes six years for the smell to wear off. Let’s make a comparison. Sajid Mahmood and Mitchell Johnson were born
Continue readingSteven Davies is a wicketkeeper and he WILL open the batting
< 1 minute read Although we made Steven Davies one to watch at the start of last summer, we had it in mind that we’d be watching him for a bit longer before he appeared in international matches. Andy Flower said this week that if Davies plays in the one-day matches, he’ll open the
Continue readingSteve Harmison has one day to bowl his way back
2 minute read If there’s one thing England need more than anything else, it’s a fast bowler. If there’s one thing Steve Harmison isn’t at the moment, it’s a fast bowler. The good news for Harmison is that nobody else is either, so all he really needs to address is that ‘at the
Continue readingWhat is genuine pace?
< 1 minute read In cricket, ‘genuine pace’ is usually 90mph (144kph) plus. If a bowler has ‘genuine pace’, it means he bowls quickly, even though the words themselves don’t really mean that. We’ve all got to stop talking about ‘genuine pace’. 36mph is a genuine pace, after all. What pace isn’t genuine? One
Continue readingJames Anderson bowls reverse swing
< 1 minute read If you’ve only seen the scorecard, you might not believe us on this one, but James Anderson bowled brilliantly in this match – particularly when you consider that he was suffering from the wild shits for the whole of one day’s play. He’s bowled well all series, in fact, in
Continue readingThird umpire referrals
2 minute read What is the third umpire referral system? Third umpire referrals are a system whereby players from either side can demand a review of the on-field umpire’s decision by the TV umpire. If a batsman’s given out lbw, he can refer it to the third umpire, who then watches the footage
Continue readingDenesh Ramdin’s massive cricket bat
< 1 minute read Can someone get hold of Denesh Ramdin’s bat and measure how wide it is? It can’t possibly be legal. As everyone got nervier and nervier and it became harder and harder for batsmen to hit the ball, Ramdin just kept middling it with his textbook defensive strokes. Whatever was bowled,
Continue readingHow England can win this Test match
< 1 minute read It’s been a strange sort of series where England’s first innings in each Test has largely been irrelevant. Having won the first Test, West Indies seem to have set themselves to bat past England – however monumental the score – and then see what happens. They’ve almost waited for the
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