Morne Morkel seems rather handy

< 1 minute read Who needs spinners when you’ve got bowlers like Morne Morkel? Pace, bounce, seam, swing, accuracy and stamina. It’s a quick bowling full house. England need a five-man attack to cover all those bases. Can he stay free from injury? Will he bowl well in tighter matches than these? Probably –

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Darren Pattinson jumps the queue

< 1 minute read We’ll give Darren Pattinson a chance, but… (1) It’s not being Australian that makes someone a good cricketer. Australia themselves leave out plenty of Australians from their Test side. (2) Trent Bridge, where Pattinson plays half his cricket, is kind to swing bowlers. (3) If Chris Tremlett is first reserve, then

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Kevin Pietersen likes an occasion

< 1 minute read That was as good as a certainty, wasn’t it? Kevin Pietersen likes a big match. He must be driven by stomach butterflies or something. We’re not quite sure how that would work, because even our rudimentary scientific knowledge tells us that there aren’t actually butterflies in there. He went out

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The only story of today’s play

< 1 minute read Realistically, there was only one story from today’s play. We’re talking of course of Jacques Kallis’s new ‘comfortable’ appearance. Now we like a fat cricketer as much as the next man – maybe even more than the next man – but we don’t appreciate Jacques Kallis’s late-to-the-party attempts. Our idea

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England will win

2 minute read Not at Lord’s, obviously. That’ll be a rain-affected draw like usual. England will win the series though. Why? Because it’s tricky playing in England. England supporters don’t realise this sometimes, but it is. Conditions are as tricky and alien to most nations’ players as Sri Lankan or Indian conditions are

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Andre Nel has a request

< 1 minute read Flex your typing fingers. Get them good and supple. You have quite simply GOT to have some comments about this quote from Andre Nel: “When the fans go hard and abuse you, I love that.” That’s a direct quote from a BBC interview. Apparently he said it ‘with a glint

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A bit of TWC

< 1 minute read That’s ‘The Wisden Cricketer’ to you. We won’t link to every piece of ours that appears on their blog, but we thought that today’s was ‘all right’ – and that’s a real high water mark for us. It’s more about Neil McKenzie. We don’t feel like everyone really got into

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