While England’s best T20 specialists, and Jade Dernbach, toil in Bangladesh, we’ll look ahead to the summer when we might actually win a game. As Jonathan Trott is the only decent number 3 we’ve had in recent years, his recovery is vital to the test team. That’s why Nick Allbury, our new guest writer, focuses on his recovery here. Thanks for your thoughts, Nick. It’s the 25th November 2013. Just hours after England’s first Test defeat in Brisbane, Jonathan Trott is...
Leave Trott Alone
It’s official. The whole world has gone bonkers. And I don’t care whether it’s politically correct to say the word ‘bonkers’ or not. Disclaimer: no bonkers people were harmed in the writing of this blog post. Sky aired a programme called ‘Burnout’ at the weekend that focused on Jonathan Trott’s battle with what the ECB, not Trott himself, called a ‘stress related illness’. In extensive interviews with Ian Ward, who set an all time record for smiling in a documentary about mental torment, Trott...
Anatomy of a failure part 2 – the psychology
As I sat down to write this piece, the news came through that Graeme Swann had retired from cricket with immediate effect. How fitting. There has been an ‘end of an era’ feel about this tour from the very beginning. Geoff Miller stepped down as chairman of selectors before the team left Blighty; Hugh Morris did the same; and rumours were also circling about the future of Andy Flower. The grin on Ashley Giles’ face was broadening by the day. The truth is, this series was always going to be the...
TFT Ashes player ratings
Now the dust has settled, and Darren Lehmann has gone home crying, it’s time to reflect on our players’ performance during the Ashes. Who triumphed in the crucial moments, and which players were largely passengers on the good ship HMS 3-0. We’ll try to be as fair as possible here – utilising statistics when necessary, but also looking behind the statistics too. Let us know if you agree or disagree. All Ashes player ratings are scores out of 10. Alastair Cook 4 – It’s almost blasphemous to...
Is this actually a test match? Day two at The Oval
If, like me, you enjoy a good moan now and again, this match is providing plenty of opportunities. There’s England’s selection; there’s England’s defensive approach (we had seven or eight fielders out on the boundary at various times today); there’s the ease with which two much maligned Australian cricketers scored centuries; and there’s the fact England were pretty much reduced to a three man attack, even though on paper they had finally, finally picked five. Yep, this test match has pretty...
The Ashes are ours. But we hardly set the world on fire.
Well, we did it. Or to be more accurate, the rain did it. Despite losing three quick wickets in the only short passage of play possible, we got an ill deserved draw and retained the Ashes. Hallelujah. The problem is, it all feels a bit empty. Nobody wanted it to materialise this way. Call me daft as a brush, but I didn’t want it to rain today. I wanted us to bat out the day with no alarms, just to demonstrate our blatant superiority: to show the Aussies that days 1-4 were an aberration, and...
