< 1 minute readWe pretty much know the teams. We pretty much know the tactics. What we don’t know is what the two teams will be feasting on during the first lunch break and who will fare the better. It’s common cricketing courtesy to clap the players when they emerge for the afternoon
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Matthew Hoggard hatches fiendish plot to get back into the England team
< 1 minute readHe’s going to distract one of the Test team while they’re driving, causing them to have a car accident. “I need to keep knocking on the door because they’re in the driving seat at the moment.” We never thought he’d stoop so low.
Continue readingAndrew Flintoff bowling like a beast
< 1 minute readNot a cow or an ocelot or a langur monkey, but some sort of robotic beast specifically created to fire out intimidating back-of-a-length bowling. Paul Horton’s hundred looks even better after Durham were bowled out for 90. James Anderson took most of the wickets, but according to Lancashire’s captain, Stuart
Continue readingTim Ambrose: still short, still batting well
2 minute readJonathan Agnew will be astounded to hear that Tim Ambrose hit a hundred yesterday, despite not having grown an inch over the winter. He hit 156 not out against Leicestershire. One of England’s multitude of wicketkeepers needs to make a definitive case for the Test spot. As the current England
Continue readingSteven Finn proves himself completely
< 1 minute readSteven Finn bowled Rob Key for one yesterday. We said that Steven Finn was one to watch this season. How much more right could we be? The answer, of course, is none. None more right. Rob’s been recovering from a virus. This is the only time he is at all
Continue readingMatthew Hoggard does the unthinkable
< 1 minute readMatthew Hoggard smashed someone’s box! That really doesn’t bear thinking about. What are the chances that the delivery was precisely quick enough to smash a box but not quick enough to do any further harm? The chances of that are nil. Thankfully, we haven’t actually seen this. The BBC say
Continue readingWhy Ravi Bopara shouldn’t be discarded
2 minute readRavi Bopara’s Test tour of Sri Lanka was complete toss, with innings of eight and 34 on his debut preceding a grim duck sandwich, with two golden ducks as the bread and an altogether meatier seven ball duck as filling. On that evidence, some people think they’ve seen the back
Continue readingAndrew Strauss murders Surrey
< 1 minute readAndrew Strauss hit 163 off 130 balls for Middlesex against Surrey in the Friends Provident Trophy yesterday. Strauss seems to have remembered what hundreds are and is now getting them in boundaries: 23 fours and four sixes equals 116. This isn’t great news for Rob Key, who even if a
Continue readingEngland’s Twenty20 World Cup venues
< 1 minute readLord’s and The Oval were the first two confirmed venues for the Twenty20 World Cup in 2009. With two London grounds being used, it gives everyone in the capital the best possible chance of seeing a match. If they’d have only had the one venue inside the M25, it would
Continue readingOwais Shah is a class above
< 1 minute readOkay, so maybe he is really irritating if you have to share a dressing room with him. We don’t know. We don’t care. He’s a fantastically accomplished batsman. In the Sussex v MCC – and you have to call it this – ‘county cricket curtain raiser’, 17 batsmen have now
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