2 minute readJonny Bairstow has worked out that he can score twice as many runs simply by doubling his strike-rate. Daryl Mitchell has realised he’ll probably keep hold of his Test place if he scores a hundred in every single match. But what do these developments actually prove? Because yeah, sure, Jonny
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2 minute readIf you’re attentive and possessed of a decent memory, you’ll clock that the headline above is a very obvious reference to our December article, Root and Silverwood have the Jack Leach they created. There’s a contrast in man management here and if you read that article again, you’ll easily see
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3 minute readHenry Nicholls getting pinballed out off his batting partner was a very, very weird wicket. Yet somehow we can’t say with certainty that it was even our favourite dismissal of the day. On day one of the third Test between England and New Zealand, the man who – thanks to
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5 minute readViolence is great, isn’t it? Violence is so much fun. We greatly enjoyed Jonny Bairstow, at Trent Bridge, with a cricket bat. At tea on day five, England were 139-4, 160 runs from victory and Jonny Bairstow was on 43 off 48 balls, which is quick, but still within the
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2 minute readAppealing is one of the great aspects of cricket and Stuart Broad is, in his own way, one of the all-time great appealers. At Lord’s, against New Zealand, he delivered a very fine secondary appeal. If you missed it, Colin de Grandhomme was run out by Ollie Pope at slip
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6 minute readHas any man credited with such great influence over two teams ever had less direct influence on either? Brendon McCullum undoubtedly laid foundations for the current New Zealand side. Just as Nasser Hussain added vertebrae to England between 1999 and 2003 before they delivered higher profile successes, McCullum set the
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3 minute readA First Class Counties XI is playing New Zealand this week. First Class Counties XI is not a good team name. The issue here is that this is not a Lions team because the Lions team is England’s formally recognised second-string. The First Class Counties XI isn’t even third-string really.
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6 minute readIf you want to be highly regarded as a wicketkeeper-batter, one of the smartest things you can do is not actually keep wicket in a whole load of Test matches. At what point do you become a wicketkeeper? How frequently do you have to don pads and gloves and chunter
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2 minute readSouth Africa coach Mark Boucher has been charged with gross misconduct by his employers. The hearing isn’t until May 16. This is a slightly odd way to embark on a Test tour. The charge is a pretty hefty one. Racism, basically. Former team-mate Paul Adams (of frog-in-a-blender bowling action fame)
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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. Two things to note before we get into this. (1) We’re looking at a two-year timespan here after Lord Megachief Postponed
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