2 minute readThe early stages of England’s one-day cricket revolution saw the team transform from one that scored about 250 on average to one that score about 250 on average. The difference was in the range. They went from making 240-260 and losing every game to making 100-400 and winning half the
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Why waste your best bowler in the final over?
< 1 minute readThe idea that England might try and bounce out Virat Kohli proved as wide of the mark as a Devon Malcolm loosener. They decided to pepper him with half-volleys instead. And it worked. They adopted a similar method against Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni, occasionally mixing things up with a
Continue readingR Ashwin: Lord Megachief of Gold 2016
3 minute readOur annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the winners. A nod for Ben Stokes’ relentless Test excellence (904 runs at 45.2 and 33 wickets at 25.81); a second nod for
Continue readingVirat Kohli had power tools while Alastair Cook only had rusty manual hand-me-downs
2 minute readEngland haven’t stagnated. They’re just worse at bowling and facing spin than India. And playing Test cricket in India involves bowling and facing an awful lot of spin. So rather than howling about normality, now might instead be the perfect time to revisit the monumental achievement that was England’s 2012
Continue readingZombies, ghosts and theodolites
1 minute readA pitch’s flatness extends beyond its physical characteristics. No matter what its actual nature, the fielding side is going to struggle to accept that there’s anything there to be exploited when it’s 600-5 and this mentality only smooths the surface further. By 700-6, a captain will be yearning for a
Continue readingSpin bowling is all in the pelvis
< 1 minute readApparently. A forthcoming study on the biomechanics of elite finger spin bowling has found “very strong positive relationships between the orientation of the bowler’s pelvis and the rate at which the ball spins during flight.” The boffins (for that is what you are obliged to call academics when writing about
Continue readingJoe Root still struggling to get out in single figures
< 1 minute readWhen Joe Root made 254 against Pakistan earlier this year, there was much talk of how he’d cracked it; how he’d responded to the move to number three by adopting a newfound merciless approach. The responsibility of batting at three had firmed Root’s desire to eradicate errors and from now
Continue readingJimmy Anderson gave a lion’s view of Virat Kohli
2 minute read“If a lion could talk, we could not understand him,” wrote Ludwig Wittgenstein. The point being our feline friend would probably be rambling on about how he’d happened across some other lion’s urine earlier in the day and his specific concerns about this patch of piss would mean nothing to
Continue readingCook and Kohli – captains with and without influence
2 minute readOh for a captain who knows what it’s like to win a Test series in India. England have had just one such leader since David Gower triumphed way back in 1984-85. It was, er, Alastair Cook. This probably goes to show that ‘knowing how to win in India’ is just
Continue readingVirat Kohli was a massive disappointment today
2 minute readThere was an awful lot of fuss after the first half of Virat Kohli’s innings. People said he was unreal, a genius – an unreal genius. Sunil Gavaskar said he was from another planet and lest anyone ask which one, he specified that it was an undiscovered planet. They said
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