< 1 minute readSam writes: “Here is a picture of Ian Bell attempting to grow a little beard. “Look at the concentration on his face. It’s dedication like this that shows just how far English cricket has come.” We asked Sam if he had a beard. Sam never got back to us about
Continue reading< 1 minute readPerhaps the most striking thing about Mitchell Johnson is his ridiculous cartoon character tufty hair. After that it’s his bowling. We watched quite a bit of Johnson when Australia toured India. He was their best bowler. For all the talk about Brett Lee being the fast strike bowler, Johnson’s not
Continue reading< 1 minute readIn more brand ambassador news, Sir Allen Stanford has done away with his team of ‘legends’ that he used to promote his shamtastic cricket event. A spokesperson said: “He has disbanded the legends group, but at this stage no decision has been taken on the future of the Super Series.”
Continue reading< 1 minute readMatthew Hayden 12, Ricky Ponting 0, Mike Hussey 0. Bring ’em down. Bring ’em down to a sensible level. Those three think they’re so good. They think they can bat in any conditions against any bowler. They think they’re ‘all that’, but they’re not ‘all that’. They are, at most,
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe’re not interested in sponsorship really. However, we do hate people with corporate titles and we outright loathe meaningless PR speak, so we did actually make the effort to read the news about Vodafone not sponsoring England any more. We also hate Vodafone because they have ‘-fone’ in their name,
Continue reading1 minute readIndia couldn’t have won the first Test without Sachin Tendulkar’s contribution, but we’re a great believer in sportsfolk affecting the opposition and influencing matches that way. We wrote about how Virender Sehwag’s approach to batting turns bowlers into smeared-panted long-hop machines, but we reckon he transformed the whole England side
Continue reading< 1 minute readWatching Sachin Tendulkar bat is always a disappointment for us. It’s not his fault. He’s had the decency to be a batting genius and we can’t really ask much more of the man. The fault lies with our own expectations. When you watch Sachin Tendulkar at work, you expect to
Continue reading< 1 minute readWhat a match. A victory for cricket being about hitting a ball with a bat as well, not it being about some middle-aged men in suits planning what car to buy next – which is what the game can often feel like these days. Nobody cares about your status symbols,
Continue reading2 minute readWhen Virender Sehwag bats, bowlers go to pieces. It’s a good approach. Viv Richards used to do something similar. He’d blaze away when he first came in and then when the field went back, he’d change his approach. The fielding side were on the back foot, he’d got his eye
Continue reading< 1 minute readJerome Taylor had a Test average of 13.66 before this match, a first-class average of 12.61 and a top score of 40. Somehow he hit 106 against New Zealand. After his hundred, Taylor said: “It was the sort of pitch that, once you got in, it got easier.” How did
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