< 1 minute readIn another era, England could have embarked on this Test with no leg-spinner and little comprehension of reverse swing. Working their way through the Indian batting line-up would have been like trying to saw through a tree trunk with a butter knife. After days of toil, they’d have succeeded only
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Brad Hogg shoved vitamin C up his jacksie – and there are still some unanswered questions about the story
< 1 minute readAnother day, another pre-Christmas autobiography by a gnarly old Australian cricketer. Brad Hogg’s The Wrong ‘Un surely warrants a mention though, if only for the anecdote about when Steve Waugh tricked him into thinking that some vitamin C pills needed to be inserted into his outbox. The story itself has
Continue readingWhy ‘par score’ is a fairly useless concept during a Test match
2 minute readEngland have made too many runs and they don’t deserve any credit. India will now make more and England will lose. A lot of England supporters seem to have swiftly moved on from ‘England are doing brilliantly’ to ‘India would have done just as well had they batted so this
Continue readingAt least Moeen Ali made 99 not out
< 1 minute readImagine that today is exactly like today only Moeen Ali made a duck. There, you see – things could be slightly worse. This isn’t so much a ‘glass half full’ attitude as a ‘there’s still something in there, I’m sure – maybe if I tip the glass the right way
Continue readingGary Ballance climbs wearily onto the treadmill
2 minute readWhen a player is dropped during a home series, there’s only one way back into the side. They perform well in first-class cricket, they tell themselves they’ve proved the doubters wrong and they return mentally buoyed. When you’re dropped on tour, things can pan out differently. Gary Ballance has just
Continue readingOur England-India composite XI
2 minute readAll Out Cricket are doing a thing where you can pick your England-India Composite XI from the last 25 years. Here’s ours: It’s easy to be distracted by the mouth-watering batting line-up, but there’s more to this team than that. We’ve also picked three spinners, which means either Jonathan Trott
Continue readingJames Anderson’s back!
< 1 minute readAs in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. In Bangladesh, England typically made headway with the ball when they managed to get some reverse swing. Ben Stokes was far and away the most effective practitioner. Should England manage to get Anderson back into the team at some point
Continue readingMop-up of the day – Batting collapses don’t just come against spin, apparently
2 minute readA true collapse comes after a start. Throwing a load of Lego bricks over the floor is just a mess; putting them together to build some sort of tower before watching it keel over – that’s a collapse. Like England last week, Australia took the time to set the scene.
Continue readingAn Australia team versus a South Africa team – this time it’s international cricket
2 minute readThe main thing we take from day one of the first Test between Australia and South Africa is that the five one-dayers they played in South Africa recently weren’t proper international matches and so they probably shouldn’t have bothered. Australia’s bowling attack for those matches was a recurring theme in
Continue readingThe riddle of Kraigg Brathwaite’s extra G
< 1 minute readMaybe one day someone will be able to answer the riddle of Kraigg Brathwaite’s extra G. The K we can understand – it’s jarring, but not unprecedented. But the second G? What does that contribute to proceedings? Maybe his parents wrote Kraig, knew it looked wrong and added a bonus
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