2 minute read For the same reason he appealed in the first place: because he’s Shakib al Hasan. Angelo Mathews was timed out during Sri Lanka’s game against Bangladesh in Delhi today. This is, incredibly, the first time a batter’s been out this way in international cricket. It takes a particular type of
Continue readingCategory: Sri Lanka
No, Kusal Mendis, you will not fool us into watching you (except maybe in highlights packages)
2 minute read 2023 World Cup, Game 8, Pakistan v Sri Lanka Early evidence in our quest to find a Sri Lanka player worth watching suggests that Kusal Mendis is a contender. No way, son. We’ve been fooled before. In that World Cup players to watch piece we did, we said that our
Continue readingDid you see… Achini Kulasuriya run out for 0?
2 minute read “Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,” said Daniel Norcross on BBC commentary. “The throw’s come in at the non-striker’s end and there is dawdleage.” It’s hard to improve on that assessment. What was so remarkable about this dismissal is that it felt like the textbook, “yadda yadda yadda… and there’s
Continue readingPaul Stirling and Curtis Campher hundreds show that actually things weren’t ‘only going to get tougher’ for Ireland in Test cricket
2 minute read “It is tough and it’s only going to get tougher,” said Ireland captain Andrew Balbirnie after Sri Lanka won the first Test by an innings and 280 runs. That seemed a wildly inaccurate assessment at the time – and indeed so it has proven. Ireland conceded 591-6 in the first
Continue readingThat game when Kane Williamson’s most exciting contribution was a bye
2 minute read Cricket is a mad and contrary sport. In a Test where he masterminded a successful fourth-innings run-chase with 121 not out, Kane Williamson’s most exciting contribution was to completely bloody miss the ball and run a bye. For those that don’t know, Williamson faced the scheduled final ball of the
Continue readingSlog of the Day: Marcus Stoinis v Sri Lanka
< 1 minute read We’re not sure this feature is really capturing the imagination, but we didn’t get where we are today by allowing complete-lack-of-reader-interest to shape our editorial decisions. If nothing else, picking Marcus Stoinis provides us with an opportunity to remind you how he and Adam Zampa are pissing away the great
Continue readingFive Test wicketkeepers who quite often didn’t actually do any wicketkeeping
6 minute read If you want to be highly regarded as a wicketkeeper-batter, one of the smartest things you can do is not actually keep wicket in a whole load of Test matches. At what point do you become a wicketkeeper? How frequently do you have to don pads and gloves and chunter
Continue readingRavindra Jadeja’s record is becoming a bit good
3 minute read It’s common to assume that we accurately value all-rounders as the sum of their parts, but more often than not, we value each part separately and sneer at each of them a bit. Ravindra Jadeja is a pretty good example. To many people, Jadeja is a fill-in bowler who takes
Continue readingWill Sri Lanka’s tour that is technically already well underway ever really get underway?
2 minute read We’ve half-followed some underwhelming international series that we don’t especially care about before now, so we like to think we know a thing or two about the genre. Sri Lanka’s current tour is shaping up to be a fine example. Exclusively white ball tours can often be shoulder-shruggers. It’s not
Continue readingFour of the weirdest eight-fors of the last 25 years (plus one nine-for and one ten-for)
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
Continue reading