< 1 minute readEngland are still very much in the market for a Test opener, you feel. Mark Stoneman is making a fist of things, but they’d quite like another top order batsman or two to take to Australia. At the time of writing, Lancashire are four wickets down but Haseeb Hameed is
Continue reading< 1 minute readEngland and Australia fans who enjoy answering the question “so why isn’t this the Ashes then?” will be delighted to hear that the two sides are going to do that thing where they follow the Test series with five don’t-give-a-toss one-day matches six months later in the other country. The
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe rather love Twenty20 finals day, which has always seemed to strike a good balance between elite sport and village fete. A lot of short format competitions seem to be striving for the po-faced tribalism of football, but the annual climax of the original has always erred on the side
Continue reading< 1 minute readAs a rule of thumb, you shouldn’t fire arrows at people – or indeed anywhere near them. It is what is known as “very dangerous”. Someone fired an arrow into the middle of the Surrey v Middlesex match today. Here’s the arrow. @surreycricket Incredibly some **** has fired an arrow
Continue reading2 minute readGed writes: Plays are generally quite good for reading during a day of county cricket. It doesn’t take all that long to read a play. In my case, this means I get to see cricket, read a play, do some general reading (e.g. from The Economist and/or The Week) and
Continue reading2 minute readThe timing of a declaration will often elicit heated discussion among commentators. However, it seems safe to assume that the actual importance of the decision rarely justifies the level of debate, which is almost certainly artificially exaggerated by the fact that such questions generally only arise when not much is
Continue reading< 1 minute readThe great thing about alternative dimensions is that every now and again you can pluck a similar-looking cricket team from one of them and deploy it in your own world. The incarnation of the West Indies seen in this Test was an unusually gritty one. Like a team-mate’s belt within
Continue reading< 1 minute readIt’s like we always say, to take 12,841 wickets, you need to create 15,516 chances. (We should stick that on a T-shirt). At the time of writing, the second Test between England and the West Indies had seen 12 drops, which is rather more than you’d expect. The Windies were
Continue reading< 1 minute readShannon Gabriel’s fun, isn’t he? An old school fast bowler who doesn’t half-arse it and who has plenty of arse to deploy. He is a good selection. Gabriel’s efforts have contrasted with those of Chris Woakes in this match. At the start of day one, Woakes was the only one
Continue reading< 1 minute readIf England could find three really mediocre batsmen, they’d be a hell of a side. They’re after a two, a three and a five. Fill those spots with players like Chris Tavaré, Ravi Bopara and – hell, why not – Jos Buttler and together with the runs from their all-rounder
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