Craig Kieswetter has finally found his vocation Forget Monty Panesar. He’s drops catches and he can’t bat. Forget Adil Rashid. His can’t even get in the Yorkshire side. Step forward England’s new great spin bowling hope, Craig Kieswetter. During the final day of Somerset’s county championship game against Worcestershire yesterday, Jos Buttler was suddenly handed the wicket keeping gloves. The capacity crowd of six ducks went wild. What were Somerset thinking – had their skipper Alfonso Thomas...
England selection committee loses its marbles
We’re really not surprised that England lost the first T20 yesterday. Judging by the team the England management put out, we can only assume they didn’t actually want to win. How many teams need three wicket-keepers? It’s ridiculous. Two usually suffices in sixteen man squads for five match test series, so why England needed three for a short T20 match is beyond us. If you can think of any rationale for such a perplexing strategy, please let us know. We phoned up all the psychiatric units of...
The elephant amongst the Lions
If I had a quid for every fan who thinks England should drop a couple of batsmen after the debacle against Pakistan, I’d have enough money to set up my own television channel, re-employ Tony Lewis and Jack Bannister, and put live test cricket back on terrestrial TV. In a way, I can understand where these people are coming from: they see Bell and Pietersen struggling to pick Saeed Ajmal’s doosra and they want blood. There’s just one problem with this rather knee jerk response. Who exactly do...
This isn’t just a beating, it’s an MS beating
England 298-4 (50 overs), India 300-5 (49.2 overs). India win by 5 wickets – & the series 3-0 It was always likely to happen. In their own backyard, and having had time to regroup after their disastrous tour of England, the World ODI champions proved too strong for our inexperienced side. Our successes in the 50 over game against India in September just raised false hopes. The opposition were tired, low on confidence after the test matches, and England were hungry. This time India...
Ravi Olé
West Indies 125 (19.4 overs) England 128-0 (15.2 overs) England won by ten wickets Excuse the rubbish pun. We get a bit punch drunk at this time of year. It has been a bloody long summer. I want to write a good headline, but the mind isn’t willing. It’s the end of September for heaven sake. We really shouldn’t be playing cricket at this time of year. Imagine how the players feel; they reported for pre-season training seven months ago. Having said that, Ravi Bopara doesn’t mind. He’s having an...
It never rains, it absolutely chucks it down
India 274-7 (50 overs), England 27-2 (7.2 overs). No result. Saturday’s ODI at the Riverside sold out eight months ago. That’s how desperate the people of Durham were to watch England play India. Unfortunately however, the weather Gods didn’t seem to care. With England needing a further 247 runs to win off 42.4 overs, the heavens opened and the mother of all deluges ensued. What promised to be an intriguing run chase therefore turned out into a damp squib. No result was possible. This really...
