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In other lights-being-hidden-under-bushels news, I just noticed this at the bottom of that article:
The expansion continues; the next step is surely invading Poland.
Perhaps you should adopt anothe nom de plume when writing grown up pieces, to prevent your reputation being sullied. I knew a novelist once (well I got drunk with him a few times in Korea) who used to write gay porn under a false name. Same thing.
You got into watching England cricket… in the nineties? God you really are a masochist. At least when I started watching them we had a decent tilt at beating anyone (except the West Indies of course).
Good article though. Younis’s stood out (or at least stood among) a worldwide set of top fast bowlers – Donald, Akram, Walsh, Ambrose – all of whom had perfected their art by repeatedly dismissing English batsmen. So to add to the pain of watching England lose, we also had the existential crisis of wondering why we couldn’t have a 7 for 12 in 5 bowler instead of Tim Munton. Dark days, dark days.
Simon C, we were thinking about going with that ‘big reveal’ next week before the Ashes, so try and forget about it for now.
The Smudge, ‘Alex Bowden’ is our nom de plume for grown-up pieces. Do you think we should acquire a third name for our Cricinfo writing?
Suggestions?
I read through the article hoping to see “Sending Gooch’s off-stump cartwheeling, Waqar let out a huge bestial roar”. Alas, it was not to be.
Does anyone else here want Laurence Elderbrook back?
fourth wall! you’re breaking the fourth wall!
Oops, sorry for stealing your thunder. Consider it forgotten…
I got into English cricket in the ’90s, too. It was when Gooch hit 333 against India.
I spent the next 14 years asking my dad why we couldn’t just keep doing that.
If I had a talent for inventing imaginative but pithy sobriquets for myself I would be a successful cricket blogger and serious journalist, rather than an occssional discussion forum ranter.
How about ‘King Bowden’.
Not feeling very imaginitive today. Probably going to dream about being asleep in bed again tonight.
Has nobody noticed that the Wisden Cricketer piece has a picture of Wasim rather than Waqar?
Otherwise, excellent piece and excellent site. Thank you.
That’s Waqar in the picture. You can tell because of the missing finger on his left hand.
Love the newsletter.
Quite grown up, but surely a *really* grown up piece on that subject must include the phrase “Wasim was a fox, Waqar was a hedgehog”.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hedgehog_and_the_Fox