< 1 minute read For a very short while on the final day, it seemed like things could potentially maybe be sort of in the balance a little bit if a few more things went England’s way, but then it very much wasn’t in the balance and the day climaxed with Alastair Cook’s round-arm
Continue readingTag: Alastair Cook
Jimmy Anderson and the lost art of opening doors
< 1 minute read This England team isn’t the most popular, but you can’t fault Jimmy Anderson for that. He’s waging a one-man willow-wielding war on unpopularity this summer. You wouldn’t think it possible to improve on his efforts against Sri Lanka, but at Trent Bridge, against India, he may well have managed it.
Continue readingAlastair Cook v Shane Warne – who’s the bigger idiot?
< 1 minute read Will Alastair Cook learn his lesson? Most people know that it’s incredibly unwise for the England captain to demand that critics be less critical. But not Cook, apparently. He recently said that “something needs to be done” about Shane Warne’s relentless criticism of his captaincy. The headline of Warne’s latest
Continue readingFatigue is cumulative – so bowl Moeen Ali
2 minute read Sorry that we keep harping on about that period of play when England got caught in fast-medium purgatory, but it really was when the game got away from England. A number of factors conspired to create the horror. As well as poor bowling and limp captaincy, tiredness played a part.
Continue readingThe opposition are allowed to play well
< 1 minute read Is anyone else starting to find this kind of thing grating? “Sometimes you just have to put your hands up and say the opposition were better than us with the bat.” So said Alastair Cook after the fourth one-day international. There’s been an awful lot of ‘accepting that the opposition
Continue readingDemanding loyalty or earning support
2 minute read ‘How about we put together a nice cosy environment where everyone goes along with everything Alastair says?’ Imagine we’re not talking about cricket for a second and put yourself in a position where someone’s just said that to you. How do you feel? Do you think that sounds like a
Continue readingWe worry for Alastair Cook’s skin
< 1 minute read He never goes indoors when he’s Down Under. He just stays out on the pitch, day after day, in direct sunlight. We know he’s got sunblock on and everything, but what if he misses a bit. Actually, that’s ridiculous – in Australia, Cook never misses. Arriving with little form and
Continue readingAlastair Cook’s back
< 1 minute read Apparently Alastair Cook developed a bad back while flying. This is an ability we didn’t know he had. Those who have been fortunate enough to witness an airborne Cook say he spurns dramatic swoops in favour of steady progress at a consistent altitude and that when bad weather is forecast,
Continue readingGuess we’ll write about Alastair Cook
< 1 minute read Does Alastair Cook know that captains are allowed off the field? If he doesn’t, no-one tip him off, because it’s going quite well. In five Tests leading England, he’s now scored five hundreds. He even hit some nice shots today, which isn’t really the point. An Alastair Cook innings shouldn’t
Continue readingThe aggregation of marginal losses
< 1 minute read Following on, with plenty of time left in the game, it was a day for slow twitch muscle fibres. England needed batsmen to show endurance and so it was perhaps unsurprising that the cyclist (Matt Prior) and the player they say is England’s fittest (Alastair Cook) were the ones to
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