2 minute readFortunate to be given the opportunity to do so, Andrew Strauss saved his Test career with a whopping 177 in the third and final Test of the tour of New Zealand. Since then, he’s hit 63, 60 and now 106 and suddenly there doesn’t seem to be much of a
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Monty Panesar at Old Trafford
2 minute readIt’s been three years since we last went to the Old Trafford Test and didn’t see Monty Panesar take five wickets. Actually, that’s not strictly true. We went to two days of last year’s West Indies Test and on one of the days he only took four wickets. In 2006
Continue readingDaniel Flynn’s lost tooth
< 1 minute readJacob Oram and the short ball: You pair are going to be great friends. It may have been Daniel Flynn’s tooth that James Anderson removed with a bouncer, but Jacob Oram looked the more uncomfortable against short-pitched bowling. Of course Flynn’s bloodied mélange of flesh and teeth went way beyond
Continue readingJames Marshall gets asked a stupid question
< 1 minute read“So, are you any relation to Hamish Marshall?” Writing in his Cricinfo diary, Ross Taylor says someone asked James Marshall that. James and Hamish are identical twins, if you didn’t know. This was either the most admirably, pig-headedly stupid and obvious joke of all time or it was asked by
Continue readingThe Old Trafford pitch
< 1 minute readSportsfreak are running a cricket tipping competition about the England v New Zealand series. We are currently equal second out of 12. For the last Test we used reasoning for precisely one of the questions and got it right. Michael Vaughan has scored bucketloads of runs at Lord’s, so we
Continue readingJacob Oram and his face
< 1 minute readMost teams struggle for all-rounders. In New Zealand they’re ten a penny. If only they could find a couple more half-decent specialist batsmen, they’d be a force to be reckoned with. This new batting line-up’s missing a few of the bigger names, of course, but even those batting absentees dabbled
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Bad light stopped play
< 1 minute readIt’s not often we agree with Mark Nicholas, if only because we don’t float through life spouting words like ‘divine’ and ‘exquisite’ every second sentence, but we think he had a point this one time he was commentating over Channel 5 highlights of cricketers walking on and off the field.
Continue readingBrendon McCullum uses his feet
2 minute readBrendon McCullum recently found his feet. Now he’s putting them to good use. If you’ve read the page we just linked to, this might sound kind of familiar. This is the Test version of that post. Brendon McCullum’s had 52 Test innings. In his first 45, he managed two hundreds
Continue readingCricket lunch
< 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
Continue readingReplacing Shane Bond
< 1 minute readYesterday, we suggested that Shane Bond adopt a disguise in order to represent his country. It’s okay, he doesn’t need to. Our scouts have identified four young bowlers who could replace the injury-prone paceman for New Zealand. Ceci has found Ryan Shanebondom: And Andrew Webster, of Spun Out fame, has
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