< 1 minute readNumber eights have played on our mind in recent months. At Cricinfo, we pointed out that there are some serious batsmen at eight these days. At The Wisden Cricketer, we identified Bangladesh as being a prime culprit in this regard. Bangladesh’s number eights have averaged more than the batsmen who’ve
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Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag
< 1 minute readComparison’s probably inappropriate, but Virender Sehwag is more eye-catching than Sachin Tendulkar these days and people get infatuated with the way he plays. As we asked this morning: which is more memorable, a Virender Sehwag double hundred or a Virender Sehwag 15? His achievements are high profile. A couple of
Continue readingVirender Sehwag’s batting average
< 1 minute readAfter this latest hundred, Virender Sehwag has a Test batting average of 53.52. That’s very high, but in this day and age, not outlandishly so. You expect Sehwag to average more than that. This is largely because when he’s in form, he’s REALLY in form. He scores twice as quickly
Continue readingGood attendance at Eden Gardens
< 1 minute readIt might not have been the Test with the highest attendance at Eden Gardens (thought to be in excess of 120,000), but the second Test between India and South Africa has seen busier stands than Nagpur where the spectators were generally waiting to bat. There are a few stands down
Continue readingThe South African way of taking wickets in India
< 1 minute readThe South Africans generally get their wickets by having fast bowlers knock the stumps over. This is not the way it’s supposed to work in India. Aside from Dale Steyn’s efforts this week, there was the 2008 match where India were dismissed for 76. On that occasion, Steyn and Ntini
Continue readingEveryone’s favourite type of cricket news: branding news
< 1 minute readWe’ve read enough about the Royals branding thing to know that this is classic marketing news: a lot of column inches are being devoted to nothing of any real consequence. Rajasthan Royals are an IPL team. Some other teams are also going to be known as ‘Royals’. They’re going to
Continue readingBy the gods of Olympus, Dale Steyn can swing a cricket ball
< 1 minute readStumps. Everywhere. Shaun Tait might have notched 160kph this week, but Dale Steyn’s shown that if you add swing to the mix, you’re sorted. In fact, he didn’t even need to resort to scorching pace against India. It’s good to have scorching pace to fall back on when you aren’t
Continue readingHashim Amla beards 253 not out
< 1 minute readHashim Amla bearded India all round the park in bearding 253 not out. Bearding for most of the day, his bearding was immaculate throughout. Amla did struggle to beard against Amit Mishra for a while, but he bearded that problem by bearding his head down and bearding before bearding other
Continue readingEngland’s next bowling coach
< 1 minute readA lot of big names are being bandied about – Allan Donald, Jason Gillespie, Darren Gough and Shaun Pollock, to name but a few – but why is no-one talking about Ian Austin? Ex-Lancashire medium-pacer, Ian Austin, could bring a lot to the job. Imagine a fabulous foursome of rotund
Continue readingChris Schofield produces a little bit of magic
< 1 minute readAll those who’ve had the privilege of watching the Lancastrian long-hop machine turn his arm over will be not in the least bit surprised to discover that this magic involves cards and not cricket balls. There is a video of Chris Schofield doing a magic trick on Surrey’s website. It
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