Is it the SWALEC stadium or the SWA-LAKE? Only two things in life seem inevitable: death and rain in Wales. The start of the Test match summer got off to a damp squib (literally) yesterday. Play was delayed until 3.30 due to torrential showers – and when the action did finally start, Stuart Broad’s bowling was all at sea. That’s the problem when you make somebody captain of the T20 team when they’re totally out of form – the pressure to play them is extreme, but in doing so you spark a...
The spectator experience
The 2011 English international cricket season begins at Cardiff this morning with plenty at stake for all three sides. India aim to keep their test No.1 status out of England’s greedy paws, while Sri Lanka hope to spoil the post-Ashes party. But as the summer progresses it won’t only be on-field results or performance that matters. Attendance and revenue will be scrutinised more closely than in living memory. 2010, remember, was the year of the great spectator no-show, with swathes...
The IPL: a view from the sofa
As a guest contributor to The Full Toss, it feels slightly heretical to intrude on an English cricket blog with a hymn to the Indian Premier League, especially given the paucity of English representation this season (name the players if you can?) But thanks to ITV4, both my work and home life have suffered from the tournament underway in India during the last few weeks. Shameful as it may sound, I’m a convert. The moment came when I innocently switched on ITV4 to see what this IPL gimmick...
Another follow on carry on
As I’m a prudent man that likes to err on the side of caution (i.e. I’m a bit of a neurotic worrier), I have a natural aversion to enforcing the follow on. The whole concept of the damn thing makes me nervous. Put yourself in a captain’s shoes. Your bowlers have just put everything into bowling the opposition out in the first innings (which might have involved spending seventy odd overs in the field) and the pitch is likely get worse as the game goes on. Why on earth would you want to bat last...
Morgan’s 193 should not be in vain
Let’s make this as simple as possible. Do England need a left-hander with a brilliant temperament, who just made a sparkling 193 in a match whose only purpose was to help the selectors pick the test squad, or yet another right-handed batsman who has failed under pressure several times in the past, and failed again when all eyes were on him on Friday? You’d have thought it would be a no brainer – but apparently not. According to most newspapers today, Ravi Bopara is still the favourite to...
Arise, Sir Shane?
In just over a fortnight the government will announce the 2011 Queen’s Birthday Honours. We believe the time has come for that list to recognise – in the form of a knighthood – the greatest cricketer many of us have ever witnessed. Shane Keith Warne. It might seem strange that we, as an England supporters’ blog, are lobbying for an Australian to receive the ultimate civil honour. So let’s explain our thinking… The very finest cricketers are always knighted As long as they’re subjects of the...
