2 minute read When we put together our Essentials Calendar last month, we figured we’d turn our attention to the World Cup at this point. We thought our gaze would shift from the West Indies v England Test series at the perfect time and we’d catch a big, exciting finish to the tournament.
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< 1 minute read Galvanisation is a tricksy process. Sometimes you need an extra ingredient. A week or so ago, we pointed out how going on tour with a coach who’s been charged with gross misconduct didn’t seem to be having a galvanising effect on the South Africa team – which is what captain
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2 minute read South 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 read South Africa v India has been an excellent series that has thrown up some really significant talking points. King Cricket being King Cricket we’d instead like to focus on one of the insignificant ones: Marco Jansen and how awkward he looks. If you’ve not been paying attention, Jansen is South
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< 1 minute read A few years ago we hit on a suitably half-arsed approach to covering the Boxing Day Tests. We flag what matches are taking place in advance, wish everyone a happy Festivus and then leave you all to cobble together a kind of fragmentary, disjointed log of any major developments in
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3 minute read Calling someone a trier is usually seen as damning them with faint praise, so we’re going to have to expand on that headline a little bit to ensure the praise is significantly less faint. The early days Dale Steyn’s just retired from cricket. We remember his Test debut. For his
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2 minute read Whenever a Test is decided late on the fifth day, there’s much talk about how that kind of tension and excitement wouldn’t happen with four-day Tests. It’s half true. This is why. If you move a deadline, you don’t negate it. Even if a Test match has no fifth day,
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4 minute read Danish Kaneria is a Pakistani cricketer who has been banned from the sport for life for spot-fixing. Dane Vilas is a South African cricketer who currently plays for Lancashire. Despite what their names suggest, neither player is from Denmark. So who is most Danish? Let’s measure the two men against
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8 minute read There have been 28 occasions in the last 25 years when a bowler has taken eight wickets or more in a Test innings. Some of these were weirder than others. At what point does a bowling performance become really, truly, freakishly remarkable? We’d say at the seventh wicket. Five-fors are
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3 minute read Three things, okay? Thing 1 Just as with Botham’s Ashes, the 2021 Moose Cup Powered by Daraz seems destined to be forever remembered as Root’s Moose Cup Powered by Daraz. In the first Test, Sri Lanka made 135 and then Joe Root made 228. In the second Test, Root made
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