He can bat, James Vince. That’s half the problem. James Vince innings come in many sizes, but there are only really two types. There are the ones where he’s dismissed and a much smaller number where he isn’t. The latter are tauntingly incomplete. Half-written poems, half-painted landscapes, unfinished symphonies. The
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If there’s one thing we can all take from the weekend’s sporting events, it’s that England are an unstoppable winning machine. The various members of England’s one-day squad are currently sitting around their houses doing really not very much at all. And England are still winning. They just can’t stop.
Continue reading2019 Cricket World Cup, Game 32, Australia v England
Continue readingWe were originally going to present this article as being the views of Captain Hindsight, but when we started to write it we realised that half of England’s problems were actually fairly easy to see in advance. So while some of what follows comes with the benefit of knowing how
Continue readingIt had to happen eventually. Today was the day James Vince finally managed to avoid edging one to slip. And it was so easy to avoid. All he had to do was persuade an opposition bowler to aim a 90mph delivery about a foot wide of leg stump only for
Continue readingThe most significant question ahead of the Waca’s final appearance as an Ashes venue was not whether or not it would recover the pace of old – because it clearly wouldn’t – it was whether or not the ball would turn. The Waca is Australia’s most over-hyped pitch and the
Continue readingOn the first day of the first Ashes Test, James Vince made what Reese described to us as ‘a daddy 30’. No-one expected Vince to make 83 and what’s so marvellous about that is that it undermines a number of pre-series certainties to leave us all watching a nice, unpredictable
Continue readingWe’ve been trying to provide some sort of pithy and insightful summary of the Test series for 24 hours now, but it’s not really happening. We’ll instead content ourself with a vague collage of observations. If these are our workings-out, maybe you can provide the conclusion yourself. Specialists and
Continue readingJames Vince wasn’t going to be caught in the slips driving today. Oh, no, no. Today he had other ideas. He announced his intentions early on by edging a sort of half-defensive shot, half-leave. Vince was going to make damn certain that when he was caught in the slips, it
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