2 minute readFor much of the year England’s selectors are Uncle Alan and Auntie Cynthia, who always go to the Marks and Spencer coffee shop. On the average trip to town, they might stop in there two or three times to break up the afternoon. They will walk past any number of
Continue reading< 1 minute readEven by the lofty doublespeak standards of a Test match press conference, this was an impressive effort from Mickey Arthur after Pakistan were bowled out for 123 by West Indies’ Devendra Bishoo. “I am not going to take anything away from the way Bishoo bowled because he bowled really, really
Continue reading2 minute readThe Cricket Monthly has a wonderful article on how dropped catches impact a Test. It’s a fascinating subject for how poorly it’s currently understood. Two of our favourite facts from the article are: That Wavell Hinds was once dropped twice en route to a duck – surely a candidate for
Continue reading2 minute readWhen England lost to Bangladesh at the World Cup, the British media stuck with the word ‘even’ – as in, ‘England are so bad, they even lost to Bangladesh’. That line was a good fit for the narrative of the time, so it would have been counterproductive to investigate, let
Continue reading2 minute readThanks to India’s flat, lifeless pitches, R Ashwin averages 33.55 with the bat. Because of India’s rank turners, he averages 24.29 with the ball. Or could it be that R Ashwin is India’s best cricketer? We’ve covered this kind of thing before, but you reach our age and you no
Continue reading2 minute readJos Buttler is not an overtly angry man. Few batsmen better expose the fallacy that attacking cricket and on-field aggression are somehow symbiotically linked. As a batsman, Buttler demolishes via controlled explosions. He delivers a series of well-timed detonations and more often than not, the opposition implodes. Yet as a
Continue reading2 minute readNovelty. That’s enough for the first match, isn’t it? We’d happily pop along to Edgbaston to see what a day-night Test in England is like. The true test (lower-case T) is whether people will keep on going, year after year. So far, day-night Test cricket has been, in the broadest
Continue reading2 minute readBalladeer writes: One of the few things I knew was vital was preparation. One doesn’t just take any old food to The Home of Cricket. So I pondered my options. Waitrose? M&S? Selfridges, for the extra touch of privately educated class? Alas, I also had to pick up some washing
Continue reading< 1 minute readThere are certainly occasions when Ian Botham is the answer. If we were to ask, ‘which Eighties cricketer frequently showcased the now historic phenomenon of ‘brown armpits’?’ then his name might well come to mind. If we were to ask you to name someone whose ability to shape cricket matches
Continue reading< 1 minute readIndia are to play New Zealand in the third Test in Indore despite someone somewhere reporting that they wouldn’t. The Indian Express spoke to “a senior board official” who said the BCCI’s bank accounts had been frozen at the recommendation of a court-appointed panel set up to look into its
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