2 minute readEngland have stuck with Ollie Pope as their number three batter. However, growing numbers of people are worried that he’s metamorphosising into Australian leg-spinner, Lloyd Pope – or at least the version of Lloyd Pope from seven years ago. At the start of the summer, Ben Stokes seemed to momentarily
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4 minute readEngland’s three-match T20 series against the West Indies starts tonight, which means that 90% of recent news has been about the Test series that follows. England named their Test squad, you see – because they didn’t feel doing that would confuse people at all. It’s noteworthy that, in this country
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2 minute readThe Harry Brook era is underway! And we have deigned to write a few sentences about it! New world, old men When Eoin Morgan overhauled England’s ODI team after the 2015 World Cup, the top two performers in the next (completed) game were Joe Root and Jos Buttler, neither of
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2 minute readThe last time England hit 400, almost 50 ODIs ago, they near as damn it made it to 500. It’s been a while. Probably shouldn’t complain. On that occasion, Eoin Morgan made a golden duck and a couple of weeks later he stopped playing cricket. England’s first 400 had come
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2 minute readThey say that in London you’re never more than six feet from a rat that has ballooned in size after feeding on one of the city’s countless sewer fatbergs. We don’t know about that, but we do know that in cricket you’re never more than 12 months from a T20
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2 minute readThere you are, point proven. How could you ever have doubted him? Zak Crawley is averaging 124 across his last one innings in Test cricket. We think the way it works is that Zak Crawley’s hundred is only worth something if it can first be hung off something else. Basically,
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6 minute readThose of us chipping away the verdigris have a pretty good idea what an early summer England v Zimbabwe Test is all about – but at the same time… man, it’s been a while. All previous England v Zimbabwe matches arrived in a very narrow window between May 2000 and
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4 minute readIt looks like Essex’s Sam Cook is finally going to get a Test cap. “About time!” you might be thinking. Or maybe you’re thinking, “Okay, that makes sense now – although which other bowlers is he going to be playing alongside?” With 318 first-class wickets at 19.77, Sam Cook’s statistical
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3 minute read“Yes, if it is to be said, so it be, so it is,” as Greg Hirsch would say. Harry Brook has been named England’s T20 and one-day international captain, as we all assumed he would be. So what happens when Ben Stokes gets injured and can’t lead the Test team
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5 minute readThere’s a fundamental tension these days between specialising in one particular format and striving to become a more rounded cricketer. It’s pretty much impossible to walk both paths, but right now Tom Banton appears to have put a good few footprints on each. In the parallel worlds of strength and
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