< 1 minute readSri Lanka have always had a good plan when playing at home, but it did have one slight flaw. Someone had to bowl at the other end. If you’re a touring side batting in a Test in Sri Lanka, you effectively play two different matches. At one end, you counter
Continue reading< 1 minute readIf Sanath Jayasuriya’s catchphrase would be ‘ha-haaaa‘, then Mahela Jayawardene’s ought to be just silence. He’s not speaking because he’s concentrating. Jayawardene averages near enough a hundred at Galle, but it’s at the Sinhalese Sports Club Ground that he REALLY likes batting. No-one’s ever scored more Test runs at a
Continue reading< 1 minute readWe think we might have subconsciously adopted Malinda Warnapura and we’ve no real idea when it happened or why. All we know is that he scored a hundred against India today and we thought ‘well played our guy’. At that point we stopped. ‘Wait a minute, why are we thinking
Continue reading2 minute readMatch reports are still welcome. The guidelines are: don’t write much and don’t mention the actual cricket. 668 Neighbour Of The Beast writes: Seduced by advertising? Never! But the comfy retro chairs looked inviting. To Riverside, home of the Durham Doodahs. The scorecard stated entertainment provided by the Durham Allstarzz.
Continue reading< 1 minute readLet’s close our eyes to England’s filthy performance and instead imagine we’re in Sri Lanka. The sun is shining, monkeys are rife, you’re having string hoppers for breakfast and Sri Lanka are playing India in Colombo. They’ll already have started by now and Ajantha Mendis should be playing. Unfortunately, Lasith
Continue reading< 1 minute readLiam Plunkett took 3-16 as Durham FINALLY made it into the Twenty20 Cup semi finals. With three superlative overs behind him, Plunkett’s surely in line for a Test recall. That’s a whole opening spell for England these days.
Continue reading< 1 minute readWho needs spinners when you’ve got bowlers like Morne Morkel? Pace, bounce, seam, swing, accuracy and stamina. It’s a quick bowling full house. England need a five-man attack to cover all those bases. Can he stay free from injury? Will he bowl well in tighter matches than these? Probably –
Continue reading2 minute readJust prior to the second Test, someone swapped England’s selectors’ supply of mogadon-laced Danish pastries for a batch of E-number laden kids’ snacks. Rumour has it they ate that unnerving stretchy cheese from the advert. We don’t know much, but we do know that cheese should never stretch without the
Continue reading< 1 minute readTotally unpredictable team selection, a batting line-up that’s five-out all-out and a bowling attack that seems to spend its time waiting for the clouds to roll in and which is utterly ineffective otherwise. But it can’t be the Nineties, because the worry lines caused by English cricket of that era
Continue reading< 1 minute readHaving badmouthed TMS last week, we feel that we should redress the balance and one person we’ve really warmed to has been South African journalist Neil Manthorp. Somehow we’ve never heard a lot of Manthorp before, or maybe we just haven’t noticed him, but on scant evidence he’s now our
Continue reading