< 1 minute readAt what point does a book become so bad that you actually find yourself wanting to read it? There are some great reviews of Ronnie Irani’s book, No Boundaries, on Amazon: “I once bought a Man United shirt with the name of Keith Gillespie on the back days before the
Continue reading< 1 minute readSeasoned England watchers know that England losing warm-up matches is just an unpleasant fact of life. It’s like that gnawing sense that something’s very, very wrong when you wake up in the morning. Just reach for your bottle of supermarket brand gin that you keep on the bedside table and
Continue reading3 minute readWe popped into the Sky offices last weekend to go and see some people from The Wisden Cricketer. Where are Sky’s offices? The address is the not-at-all-made-up-sounding 123 Buckingham Palace Road. We were confronted with a large glass wall with a small glass revolving door in the middle of it.
Continue reading< 1 minute readNot many countries can pick 17-year-olds to open the bowling for them, because not many countries have 17-year-olds who can scythe the ball past international opening batsmen and swing it both ways. Even that’s not enough to make Mohammad Aamer a fully-fledged Pakistani cricketer though. There’s more to it than
Continue reading< 1 minute readAustralia have managed a cracking one-day series victory over India, particularly considering they’re down to Clint McKay and the likes. There’s a core of first-choice players, but if you were in the vicinity of the Australia side at some point recently and happened to be wearing a yellow T-shirt, chances
Continue reading3 minute readAshes Cricket 2009 is an action cricket game, as opposed to a strategy game. It’s probably the best cricket game going of that type. Batting Weirdly, batting’s actually better than bowling. In previous cricket games, batting has largely been about getting frustrated and smashing the joypad because your idiot batsman
Continue reading3 minute readDid you know that it took 78 one-day internationals for Sachin Tendulkar to score a hundred? It’s an odd fact, that, considering he’s squeezed in another 44 since then, including a whopping 175 against Australia today. It’s sometimes difficult to appreciate Sachin Tendulkar properly. It’s like thinking about the vast
Continue reading< 1 minute readWhere’s Pat Farhart when you need him? Australia need those magic hands, even if previous quotes hint that they might tamper with spin bowlers from time to time. Already without Nathan Bracken, Brett Lee, Peter Siddle and James Hopes, Australia’s bowling attack now has to cope without Moises Henriques because
Continue reading2 minute readWe’re not generally in favour of hackneyed caricatures, but we’ll make one exception: Pakistan the unpredictable. Pakistan’s cricket team are generally portrayed as equal parts genius and slapstick and with a capacity for self-destruction unrivalled even by Slash. (“I was pissed off at myself for having died. It really ate
Continue reading< 1 minute readEngland currently have a number of South African born players. Jonathan Trott’s the latest and he seems to be under some suspicion at the minute, despite spending seven years qualifying to play for England. Mike Norrish, writing on the Telegraph’s site, says: “I guess the whole thing boils down to
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