< 1 minute readShit! What are you supposed to do? This is unprecedented. Don’t know about you, but we celebrated by having quite a bad hangover and having to have an early night. Yay! Even more strangely, England were the best team in the tournament. The best team doesn’t necessarily win a Twenty20
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How do you feel about the World Twenty20 final?
< 1 minute readWalking through south Manchester last night, we felt very aware of the fact that this World Twenty20 final isn’t particularly registering with the nation. There are England flags on cars and houses, but they’re for the other England World Cup bid. It’s understandable really. This is the more frequent of
Continue readingMike Hussey: the finisher
2 minute readWhat an absurd luxury to have Mike Hussey coming in to bat at seven in any form of the game. Yesterday, the man who people still tend to think of as a rather dour opening bat once again finished a game for Australia after six men had gone in ahead
Continue readingMike Hussey’s World Twenty20 semi-final winning six
< 1 minute readIt’s possible there may have been some adrenaline involved in that shot.
Continue readingThe England cricket team has almost run out of chances
< 1 minute readIt’s a scary thought, but England have only got one more chance to resume normal service. They’re in the final of the World Twenty20, so it’s all-or-nothing. Seasoned England watchers know their side has the ability to take this opportunity to get back to normal underperformance, but set against that
Continue readingTim Bresnan could be the yeoman
< 1 minute readEngland haven’t had a bowler who commentators can patronisingly refer to as a ‘yeoman’ since Matthew Hoggard got the boot. Tim Bresnan’s from Yorkshire and bowls a bit of swing. Maybe he can step in and be a doughty northern caricature so that the English cricket establishment can reinforce their
Continue readingIndia don’t have good bowlers
< 1 minute readNot enough of them anyway. You have to use at least five bowlers in Twenty20. India have been using Harbhajan Singh (great); Zaheer Khan (really good, but occasionally vulnerable in Twenty20); and Ashish Nehra (solid but unspectacular). To make up their remaining overs, they use Yusuf Pathan, who is clearly
Continue readingEnglish cricket momentum – no-one knows where they’re heading
< 1 minute readEngland’s win over South Africa is proof of the EXTRAORDINARY MOMENTUM that they have gained by losing a game, having one rained off and then winning two. England are pretty much unstoppable now. That’s not to say that they’ll be tearing along down the right path, necessarily. Momentum’s great, but
Continue readingEngland’s Twenty20 batting line-up
< 1 minute readAn Englishman, an Irishman and a South African walk into a pub. “Aren’t you an England Twenty20 middle-order that inspires a surprising amount of confidence in supporters?” asks the barman. “No,” says the Englishman. “We’re three entirely different people who just happen to be of the same nationalities as the
Continue readingEngland v maths
< 1 minute readMaths wins. You should never try and compete against maths. It’s unconquerable. Despite putting in one of their finest batting performances in either of the short formats, England were comprehensively beaten by maths. Maths unleashed its biggest and most destructive weaponry, the Duckworth-Lewis calculations, which cruelly shuffled figures about until
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