< 1 minute readNew Zealand’s third wicket fell. Jesse Ryder picked up his bat, lay down on the outfield and commanded his team mates: “Roll me out there. I’ve got a job to do.” Without having had inadequate preparation for once, Ryder was primed for action. He brushed the chocolate digestive crumbs off
Continue reading2 minute readEngland are generally impatient with promising young players. They bring them in, everyone who can voice an opinion takes it in turns to daub them in excrement and then it takes six years for the smell to wear off. Let’s make a comparison. Sajid Mahmood and Mitchell Johnson were born
Continue reading< 1 minute readAlthough we made Steven Davies one to watch at the start of last summer, we had it in mind that we’d be watching him for a bit longer before he appeared in international matches. Andy Flower said this week that if Davies plays in the one-day matches, he’ll open the
Continue reading< 1 minute readGed writes: The attached photograph is a monk at the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim brandishing a cricket bat. It is my own photo and the monk enthusiastically volunteered to be photographed. Rumtek monastery is a very holy and unusual place. The monks are black hats, which is an unusual strand
Continue reading< 1 minute read“Let’s make the shirt maroon and then match that with scarlet trousers and hats, because maroon and scarlet are complementary colours. “Let’s put some yellow bits here, there and everywhere and then let’s make the collar, ooh, let’s say bright green. “Finally, as the piece de resistance, let’s put a
Continue reading2 minute readIf there’s one thing England need more than anything else, it’s a fast bowler. If there’s one thing Steve Harmison isn’t at the moment, it’s a fast bowler. The good news for Harmison is that nobody else is either, so all he really needs to address is that ‘at the
Continue reading< 1 minute readWarning: The following does feature a photograph of an actual woman. Ankit says: The attached picture is of Preity Zinta, a Bollywood starlet, with a cricket bat, on the cover of Vogue! I thought that was quite an unusual place for a cricket bat to be. Send your pictures of
Continue reading< 1 minute readIn cricket, ‘genuine pace’ is usually 90mph (144kph) plus. If a bowler has ‘genuine pace’, it means he bowls quickly, even though the words themselves don’t really mean that. We’ve all got to stop talking about ‘genuine pace’. 36mph is a genuine pace, after all. What pace isn’t genuine? One
Continue reading2 minute readBenno writes: Really it all started the night before in Harbour Lights in Bridgetown where we took full advantage of the ‘drink all the sickly rum punch you can for 50 bajan dollars’ offer and invented a game called musical table dancing. My mate, Pikey, tried to rip out his
Continue reading< 1 minute readIf you’ve only seen the scorecard, you might not believe us on this one, but James Anderson bowled brilliantly in this match – particularly when you consider that he was suffering from the wild shits for the whole of one day’s play. He’s bowled well all series, in fact, in
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