ArchiveNovember 2014

There were no inquiries after England’s disastrous Ashes whitewash. The media asked a few questions, the fans chatted on twitter, many vented their spleens on forums such as this one, but firm action was generally lacking: the captain kept his job, the coach stayed an ECB employee, no selectors resigned, and Giles Clarke kept guzzling champagne. The major changes in structure or personnel one might expect after abject humiliation never materialised. Instead what we got was a lot of talk – about...

Now the dust has settled, we’ll continue to pick our way through the fine detail of Kevin Pietersen’s book. How does it match up with what’s already in the public domain? Where does it shed the most new light? And what else goes on the list of questions Paul Downton must answer? Earlier we looked at the first, previously unreported, meeting between Downton and Pietersen. Now we’ll turn to what happened next. The sacking Pietersen makes no mention of his meeting with John...

, Here’s a reminder of our most recent quiz. Either enter your answers below, or to negate spoilers, e-mail them to maxie@thefulltoss.com. Answers on Friday. Good luck! Double acts 1. Who are the two people in the photo above? 2. And who are these two? 3. Which pair hold the English test record for highest opening partnership (359 versus South Africa in 1948)? 4. Frank, editor of the editor of the Royal Statistical Society’s newsletter, and Tony, a former lecturer in Quantitative Research...

‘Viewpoints’ is our repository for new contributors and feature-length comments. It’s a place for you to ask questions or get something off your chest. If you’d like to submit a piece, please e-mail me on maxie@thefulltoss.com. In this post, Girish Menon asks – why are British Asians under-represented in English cricket?  Last year an ECB survey found that 30% of this nation’s grassroots cricketers are of Asian origin or heritage. But only 6.2% of our first class cricketers...

England’s beleaguered ODI squad fly to Sri Lanka soon for seven World Cup warm up games against Sri Lanka. And if we’re looking for a winter ‘warm up’ the ECB have found the perfect place: it’s currently pushing 30 degrees in Colombo. It sure beats the brass monkeys of bonfire night in the UK. So what can we expect from the tour? The short answer is ‘runs’ – lots of them – and mostly from Sri Lanka’s batsmen. With Broad and now Anderson injured, our seam attack looks about as threatening...

The dust continues to settle from Pakistan’s annihilation of Australia. James took a first look at it yesterday. But this result will continue to reverberate through the crickosphere for some time to come. It poses questions about the received world order. The ‘big three’ cartel will be terminally exposed as a stitch-up unless those trio of nations justify their status on the field. Yet in the 2014 summer England and India limped their way through an under-powered series...