The Champions Trophy starts in a couple of weeks and people are already tipping England, India, Australia and South Africa to win. But what about Sri Lanka? Because they’ve lost so many great players in recent years they’re flying under the radar somewhat. This isn’t entirely surprising because so many of their new stars are unknown quantities (to English fans at least). With this in mind, we’ve called up an expert on Sri Lankan cricket to help us. His name is Ilamaran...
Jonny Proves A Point
“Thanks for coming Jonny. Maybe we’ll give you a ring if we’re one short next month”. You’ve got to feel sorry for Jonny Bairstow. He’s the third best batsman in the country (after Root and Cook), he had a record breaking 2016 as England’s test batsman-keeper, he averages a healthy 37 in ODIs at an excellent strike-rate of 91, and yet he can’t get into England’s first choice ODI side. And worse still, when he does actually get a game, they...
BCCI Should Grow Up
I have a baby daughter who’s one and a half years old. We love her dearly but she’s a right pain in the bum when she doesn’t get her way. She screams, shouts, pouts like Posh Spice, and occasionally spits her dummy out and throws it across the room. It’s not a pleasant sight. The BCCI’s reaction to the ICC’s new financial model – which overturns the abhorrent big three stitch up and distributes wealth more evenly – reminds me a great deal of my...
As You Were – England’s Champions Trophy Squad
Continuity is nice. It’s like a reassuring hug. It might be boring – and it gives the blogosphere sod all to talk about – but it shows that most things in the garden are rosy and optimism is starting to bloom. England’s champions trophy squad is one such example. The selectors could have picked a number of budding new players – Liam Livingstone amongst them – but they resisted the temptation to weed out any incumbents. And it was probably the right decision...
Candy. Baby.
When England win an ODI by the ridiculously emphatic margin of 186 runs, I guess we should all be happy. Back in the 1980s our batsmen rarely scored 186 across two innings of a test match against the Windies …. well, maybe we weren’t quite that bad, but you get my point. When England got slaughtered by a Windies pace attack that included the likes of Marshall, Holding, Patterson, Garner etc, our press would often moan about too much short pitch bowling, intimidation and what some...
Calm Heads Avert Setback
Keep cool, man. I quite enjoy watching cricket from the Caribbean. It’s not quite what it used to be, when the stadiums were close to city centres, and Gravy was dancing in the stands, but it still makes a nice change. There are usually quite a few cool cats in the stands too – although the coolest two men in Antigua yesterday were probably Joe Root and Chris Woakes, who kept their heads brilliantly when England’s chase spun out of control at 124-6. Even though...
