2 minute readAny batting side can fold like a Bargain Booze leaflet pushed through the door, but it takes a certain amount of preparation to do this when it’s really expected of you. Confronted with a robust hard-to-open letterbox, Australia crumpled impressively. We watched the first six overs of their 85 all
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Mop-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 readingIs Rory Kleinveldt the archetypal South African pro?
< 1 minute readAs you may well have seen, Michael Lumb and Riki Wessels shared a 342-run partnership in a one-day game last night. Even more dispiritingly for the opposition, they did it as openers while batting first. You could easily have been forgiven for thinking that the game was essentially over even
Continue readingThe first 229 runs of a T20 chase are apparently the easiest
< 1 minute readAfter two overs against the West Indies, England had scored five. They then added another 177. After two overs against South Africa, England had made 44. They then added another 186. The first two overs aren’t to be wasted. It was an odd match though. We can only conclude that
Continue readingTurns out AB de Villiers is rubbish at T20 cricket
1 minute readThere’s only so many times you can hear how wonderful something is before you want to hit it with a hammer or push it down a flight of stairs at the luxury five-star hotel at which it’s staying ahead of its team’s first match at the World T20. However, this
Continue readingAlex Hales cultivates a healthy aversion to failure
2 minute readIf you were starring in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and needed to act in a scene where the submarine grounded on the seabed or was attacked by some sort of leviathan, there was only one way to do it. You and the rest of the cast ran
Continue readingEngland win, England lose, life goes on
< 1 minute readSometimes you win, sometimes you lose. When you win, all’s well. The captain says that you played well as a unit while adding a cautionary note: “We are not yet the finished article.” When you lose, he talks about processes and learning curves. Lose a few in a row and
Continue readingHashim Amla in ODIs – a brief but unwelcome detour into stats
2 minute readThe human brain isn’t wired for statistics. In fact it isn’t wired at all. Perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe in the distant future when we’re all mechanically enhanced cyberfolk we’ll be able to make logical decisions based on data rather than being influenced by our demented emotional responses to stories
Continue readingEngland ODI team triggers outlandish pronouncement
< 1 minute readWe once overheard one man say to another man: “I gave you the money and you ate the money.” True story. The background is that we were in a restaurant in Goa on Christmas Day. It was early evening and the proprietor was already absolutely shit-faced. A customer was buying
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