2 minute readWe went overboard with the Tour de France references last month, so we’ll avoid making one here, even though we want to. Just as you can win the Vuelta a Espana without winning a single stage, so you can be considered the best batsman without being the best in every
Continue reading< 1 minute readBanging his head two days earlier compelled Gautam Gambhir to send out a morningwatchman. The consensus seems to be that he’s a bit soft. Maybe he is still concussed, maybe he’s genuinely not fit to bat, but he might have stood a better chance of people believing that if he
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe did two things wrong in this piece for Cricinfo. We depicted Andrew Strauss as a socially disconnected toff, which is unfair and also something of a cliché. There are two dissatisfied Yorkshiremen in it and having once lived in God’s own county, we hate cricket’s Yorkshire stereotype and fear
Continue reading2 minute readIt seems a long time ago that we wrote about India’s young fast bowlers, nodding sagely and approvingly at what was on offer. That’s because it actually was a long time ago and the 26-and-under promise we saw four years ago should be something rather more than that by now.
Continue reading2 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
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