2 minute read The modern Test series is more about endurance than ever before. It may feature fewer matches, but with little pause between them, it is more like one ongoing slog than a sequence of distinct skirmishes. We’ll see this vividly in the third and decisive Test between Australia and South Africa
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South Africa don’t really get spin bowling
< 1 minute read Do you see what happens, Larry? Do you see what happens? This is what happens. This is what happens when you pick an all-pace attack. Always pick a spinner. No matter how good your fast bowlers are, if the batsmen get into a rhythm, you can find yourself on the
Continue readingAustralia stick to their plans against Amla and Kallis
< 1 minute read The plan was to target Jacques Kallis with lots of short stuff. Kallis has now faced lots and lots and lots of short stuff. Meanwhile, we dread to think how much verbal aggression Hashim Amla’s had to counter over the course of his 207-ball unbeaten innings. We imagine that verbal
Continue readingBrace yourselves – Australia have a dossier
< 1 minute read And it’s been leaked! We don’t really know what a dossier is. Is it just a piece of paper with a list on it? Whatever it is, it contains some staggering revelations: Australian bowlers are going to bowl some bouncers Australian cricketers are going to call an opponent names Apparently,
Continue readingJos Buttler dismantles Wayne Parnell
< 1 minute read Wayne Parnell went for 37 off two overs yesterday. He conceded five in the first. In the second, Jos Buttler took him apart as if he were an old, rotten shed which had tried to have sex with his daughter. We’re not exactly sure how a shed would go about
Continue readingWhat are England and South Africa playing for tonight?
< 1 minute read Are they playing for pride, honour, a trophy? No! They’re playing for momentum. Going into the Twenty20 World Cup with this batting line-up, England will need as much momentum as they can get, because it rather feels like they’re about to roll into a brick wall rather than a little
Continue readingHashim Amla WILL NOT GO AWAY
< 1 minute read We really like Hashim Amla, but by the box of Dujon, will he EVER stop batting? There’s one more match this summer and we have every reason to believe that he’ll bat out the overs and make a hundred. It seems the most likely outcome, even if it’s another nine
Continue readingCricket’s schadenfreude production line
2 minute read Congratulations, South Africa. Prepare for people to delight in your fall. In recent years, the Test rankings have been a kind of schadenfreude production line. One nation gets to the top and promptly celebrates and then everyone else celebrates even more heartily when the team in question drops down again.
Continue readingHashim Amla is a bit too good
< 1 minute read Hashim Amla is not new. He’s been bearding hundreds for many years now. It is therefore no surprise that his second innings hundred tipped the balance from ‘could go either way’ to ‘very probably a South Africa win’. Vernon Philander’s two late wickets then shoved it to ‘almost certainly a
Continue readingJonny Bairstow isn’t bothered
< 1 minute read You wonder whether it’s worth England batting Jonny Bairstow at the top of the order. It’s not that he’s particularly suited to the role, but if the opposition remain hell-bent on bouncing the shit out of him, it might soften the ball a bit for all the batsmen who follow.
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