Those of you with young kids might know a cute / irritating cartoon called Paw Patrol. It’s about a band of puppies who solve crimes and generally frustrate the evil machinations of the feline group ‘Cat-astrophe’. One of the puppies is called Chase. And he’s as harmless as wet cotton wool. A bit like Roston Chase’s bowling in fact. The lesson we can learn from Paw Patrol is that you don’t need to be frightening to succeed. You can appear completely innocuous, lack teeth, yet still...
Holder Of All The Cards
What can you say when you’ve just been flayed to all parts by a No.8 and No.7 batsman? Two guys who barely average 30 in test cricket. Sure they’re good players – most cricketers are talented at test level – but this wasn’t Adam Gilchrist destroying our ‘attack’. It was the captain and wicket keeper of a team that usually can’t buy a win in test cricket; a team that lost its last test (against Bangladesh) in an innings. I don’t want to take anything away from the admirable and...
77 All Out: The Rant And The Rave
We’ve got two different views on yesterday’s action for you today. I’ll go first and then Alex, the eternal optimist, will have his say … 77 all out. Sigh. What a stinking pile of donkey crap. If I was James Anderson I’d tell the batsmen to do one and get on the next plane home. He and Ben Stokes deserved better than the rubbish England’s batsmen served up yesterday. Yes the bowling was very good. Yes the pitch was doing a bit. But this pitiful performance...
Anderson Saves England’s Blushes
He’s pretty good, isn’t he. Jimmy Anderson, England’s best cricketer for years, proved once again that age is no barrier in professional cricket. I would say it’s no barrier in life in general, but judging by the way my hangovers seem to get worse and worse every year, I think that would be stretching things – almost as much as my middle-aged paunch is stretching the fetching tracky bottoms I’m currently wearing. Of course, I’m a mere mortal compared to...
Let’s Make Them Wobble: Windies Series Preview
England’s test series against the Windies starts on Wednesday, so it’s time to invoke the spirit of Tony Greig and Colin Graves by making some ill thought through predictions. Surely we can’t lose to this ‘mediocre’ lot? Let’s make them, erm, wobble. However, although over-confidence has proved England’s demise in the Caribbean before – don’t forgot we’ve only ever beaten the Windies away from home once in recent times –...
England Unchanged, Australia Defeated, Umpires Snoozing
England named their test and ODI squads for the Caribbean yesterday. There were no real surprises. This means there’s actually very little to debate. All we can do is nod in agreement and try not to get too cocky after beating Sri Lanka 3-0. Everyone expected Ben Foakes to make the cut after doing so well in his debut series and so it proved. The only slight surprise was the omission of Ollie Pope, who many see as England’s next big hope. Instead Ed Smith has decided to back Joe...
