< 1 minute readYou’ll of course remember when David Warner took a swing at Joe Root after becoming inexplicably incensed by the Yorkshireman’s inappropriate use of a wig. Halcyon days. There was at least something comical about this particular confrontation; a certain Scrappy Doo quality borne of Warner’s diminutive stature and the sheer ludicrousness
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The campaign to get Paul Collingwood into England’s Ashes squad
< 1 minute readWhat else does nostalgia prove, if not that everything was better in the past? Let’s do the who, the what and the why. Who? Paul Collingwood. Paul is 41 and hasn’t played Test cricket for England since 2011, so the first thing to say in favour of his selection is
Continue readingDid you know that it’s the Magellan Ashes this time around?
2 minute readSponsorship is a wonderful thing. It keeps fun stuff profitable and it allows sports players to sound institutionalised and cut off from reality. Midway through the British summer, we saw Alastair Cook being interviewed on breakfast TV. Consummate professional that he is, Cook never once said “Test” when he could
Continue readingWill Peter Siddle play in the Ashes?
2 minute readWe’re having one of those bizarre moments of doubt. Do cricketers play in the Ashes? It sounds wrong to say they ‘play the Ashes’ but ‘play in the Ashes’ suddenly sounds like the person’s a gleeful pyromaniac dancing in the aftermath of their latest deed. We’ve started a new feature
Continue readingMop-up of the day – capybaras and helicopters
2 minute readFirstly, let’s just savour yet another fine moment for Rangana Herath, an international cricketer who is not only older than us, but also better than every other cricketer there’s ever been (possible hyperbole). Spending most of your career with Muttiah Muralitharan as your benchmark can lead to having standards some
Continue readingI Don’t Like Cricket, I Hate It – the upcoming Ashes tour edition
3 minute readA semi-regular feature in which we ask a fella going by the name of Prince Prefab about cricket – even though he hates cricket. We are in bold. Prince Prefab is not. It strikes us that a looming Ashes tour is one of the few times when the sport might
Continue readingWe should probably mention Middlesex being relegated
< 1 minute readIn a way, Middlesex were unlucky to be relegated as they only finished two points off fourth place. In another way, they weren’t unlucky because Somerset, Hampshire and Yorkshire all finished with more points than they did, which is kind of the aim of this whole endeavour. As title defences
Continue readingWhere are your ‘bad pitch’ thresholds?
2 minute readWhat is a bad pitch? We can get some sort of an idea by working out what we deem to be a good pitch – but there’s more to it than that. Most people will say a pitch is bad when wickets fall too easily. When a pitch gives too
Continue readingEngland to win the Ashes via airy off-side drives
2 minute readIs that a dripping tap way off in the distance? No, it’s actually James Vince gently knocking on the door to politely request selection, if that wouldn’t be too much trouble. Quite how the selectors heard him is beyond us. Vince wasn’t thought to be good enough at the start
Continue readingBen Stokes makes a night in the cells happen
2 minute readThe facts are these. Splice and dice them as you see fit. The ECB say that 26-year-old Ben Stokes was arrested in the early hours of Monday morning following “an incident” in Bristol Police say a 26-year-old man was arrested that night on suspicion of causing actual bodily harm Another
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