< 1 minute readMark Davies’ 19 wickets at 29.57 last year was a woeful return by his standards, but an overall first-class record that reads 251 wickets at 21.68 is as good as it gets. Mark’s 30 this year, so this will be his fourth and final appearance in our Ones To Watch.
Continue reading< 1 minute readLiam Plunkett’s a bit of a batsman as well, but his bowling is what matters. Of Durham’s many fine bowlers, Onions, Harmison and Blackwell all averaged less than Plunkett last season, but only Harmison took more wickets. Plunkett’s average of 24.83 was hardly shameful either. Although Plunkett’s age seems to
Continue reading< 1 minute readJarrod Balls – as we’re going to start calling him, because it’ll get on his nerves – has put together an alternative cricket magazine with help from some friends. Many of you will already know about it, because you seem to have written a proportion of it. It’s called the
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe’ve just left the country. Regular readers will know that this tends to signal an improvement in quality due to the fact that we rely on a lot of reader submissions while we’re away. In the next fortnight, we’ve got the annual sham that is our county cricket ‘ones to
Continue reading< 1 minute readRemember Michael Vaughan’s paint thing? He was commissioned to produce a painting of the Chevrolet Cruze. “The painting took eight hours to create with Vaughan calling on his cricketing expertise to accurately recreate the bodywork, tyres and alloys on canvas using five different coloured cricket balls and over 20 litres
Continue reading< 1 minute readMatthew Hayden’s been out of international cricket for a while now. It’s natural that he’d be a bit rusty. We’re not talking in terms of his batting. We’re talking in terms of his guff talking. He’s not totally lost it though: “This game, coming tomorrow night, is the opportunity to
Continue reading< 1 minute readSami has just pointed us towards The Hayden Way. It’s currently a one page website which we might as well reproduce in its entirety: So what does The Hayden Way do? It prides itself on the delivery of unnecessary apostrophes.
Continue reading< 1 minute readIf you want to know how to retire from cricket. Look to Pakistan. Look to Mohammad Yousuf, who’s executed a textbook Pakistan cricket retirement. “This is my retirement. I have retired from international cricket.” He then added: “For now, this is it. For now this is my retirement.” That’s how
Continue reading< 1 minute readThat’s the emotional climax of the Just For Men advert that we’ve seen about 18 times today while watching the IPL. We’ve gone through hatred and emerged the other side, joining in with the ‘more ties!’ bit, punching the air for emphasis. It’s astonishing the level of advertising you’re exposed
Continue reading< 1 minute readAre breathtaking innings all about how many sixes are hit and how few balls are faced? Ross Taylor’s 81-ball hundred against Australia wouldn’t even be half as good as Yusuf Pathan’s 37-ball IPL hundred if that were the case. Clearly, it’s all about context. A DLF Maximum is commonplace. In
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