2 minute readEmbed from Getty Images One of Test cricket’s greatest strengths over the other formats is how you get to know the players better. We’d seen a great deal of Praveen Kumar before this series, but had no particular opinion about him. This has changed in the last few weeks. First
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe’ve just been to the supermarket and do you know how many beers there were available that specifically celebrated England’s rise to number one in the Test rankings? None. That’s how many. None beers. The best we could find was McEwans’s Champion Ale and that’s Scottish. We didn’t even see
Continue reading2 minute readWe don’t have any amazing insights into this, in the unlikely event that that’s why you visit this website. However, what we will say is that it is a measure of England’s progress that we English are being forced to search for new goals. For pretty much our entire life,
Continue reading2 minute readThere seems to have been a good deal of criticism of England, considering how well they’re doing. We’re not joining in. While Alastair Cook could have accelerated later on, there was also something to be said for the sheer demoralising effect of batting on and on and on. If it
Continue reading< 1 minute readTeams have used any number of different approaches when trying to get Alastair Cook out in the last year. Pretty much all of them have failed. Of the 2,855 deliveries he’s faced in Test cricket since this time last year, 17 of them have got him out. Today, India tried
Continue reading2 minute readSo far, it’s been looking a bit Stella – stronger than most, but you’d really rather have something else if at all possible. That said, context is everything in cricket and batting hasn’t been all that easy this summer. England’s bowling has generally been very good, but there have been
Continue reading2 minute readDespite occasional accusations of journalism, we do not consider ourself part of the British press. We’d like to take this opportunity to distance ourself from two specific themes that are currently appearing in the cricket pages. Indian players don’t care about Test cricket This is a fairly regular subtext to
Continue reading< 1 minute readFaith is what you need when you don’t have facts. More accurately, faith is what you resort to when you don’t have facts – ‘need’ isn’t the right word. Faith is a way of sticking your head in the sand and even when you’re looking for something at the beach,
Continue reading< 1 minute readThe summer of 2007. A young Kanye West was riding high in the charts and foot and mouth was sweeping the nation. In cricket, an India team featuring Rahul Dravid and RP Singh was touring England and enjoying a certain amount of success. Harking back to those halcyon days, India’s
Continue reading< 1 minute readAs in ‘returned’. He hasn’t got anklosing spondylitis or anything. “He’s late to meetings, or he wears the wrong clothing to a function, or forgets his passport.” – Essex coach, Paul Grayson. Ravi Bopara – a man with qualities we can all get behind.
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