< 1 minute readAnd largely thanks to the bowling of Ravindra Jadeja, of all people. We’re still not quite sure how he gets wickets. This week’s instalment of The Spin was about Jadeja and how fans didn’t value him for a long time. We’re glad he’s no longer getting a hard time, but
Continue reading< 1 minute readLargely because Pakistan never actually got round to chasing the target. Instead, the batsmen just sort of stood there and hoped that it would go away on its own. It didn’t.
Continue reading< 1 minute readBut not by a huge amount. Chasing 139 to win, you’d hope to get there without losing nine wickets. Then again, they didn’t lose ten, so what’s the problem? A really bad run chase is a wonderful thing. A big run chase is faintly absorbing, but for real tension you
Continue reading< 1 minute readSame teams as last week. Slightly different order. 1st – Sussex Sussex remain top. A draw with Nottinghamshire just about crept into this week’s update. Highly efficient eating device, Samit Patel, made 157 for Nottinghamshire in that match, while highly efficient wicket-gathering device, Chris Jordan, took nine wickets for Sussex.
Continue reading< 1 minute readGreat news. We still don’t have to expend mental energy thinking of post titles. It’s tempting to draw all sorts of conclusions after any match between England and Australia. We have just two things to say. The team without a spinner lost The law of scarcity dictates that Aussies will
Continue reading< 1 minute readThis post title policy will come to a crashing halt should England lose to Australia today. An odd and absorbing match at the Oval, where only Misban-ul-Haq and the Jam Shed managed to score more than six runs in Pakistan’s innings. Misbah’s 96 not out was exactly the kind of
Continue reading< 1 minute readIf we’d have bothered writing a Champions Trophy preview, we might have had India down as fair weather favourites. It’s as much the lack of alternatives as anything else. India have their weaknesses, but despite the absence of some extraordinarily familiar faces they’re experienced and they play to their strengths.
Continue reading2 minute readA good few players try the ramp shot these days, but few score as great a proportion of their runs with it as Jos Buttler. At times he seems unaware the pitch has sides, creating a two-spoked wagon wheel behind bowler and wicketkeeper. The Buttler version of the ramp is
Continue reading< 1 minute readDavid Gower has said in an interview in the Radio Times that Australia has no culture and that their cricketers have ‘an animal mentality’. He’s partly right, but probably for the wrong reasons. Culture This one’s lazy and wrong. Australia has plenty of culture. Arguably too much. Plenty of websites
Continue reading3 minute readHow long does it normally take James Anderson to make 28 runs? The answer is four years. Don’t scrutinise that. Today, Jimmy made 28 off 19 balls. If you didn’t see the match, that should tell you something. Run scoring was not difficult. We’d go so far as to say
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