Posts By: Jon Scaife

0The Ashes urnHome conditions — more important than ever?

Published by & filed under Australia, England, India, The Ashes. Last updated .

So, Eng­land have com­pre­hens­ively wrapped up the Ashes with a game to spare. What a turn-around from 18 months ago where they were humi­li­ated by an aver­age Aus­trali­an side. With such huge swings out­come over the past 3 Ashes series the talk­ing heads have focussed on the con­di­tions play­ing a huge part. Are they right to?
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0Where have we been?

Published by & filed under Uncategorised. Last updated .

We’ve had rather an exten­ded hiatus over the last year or so with one author start­ing a fam­ily and myself par­tic­u­larly busy with work from Septem­ber to May. But over the com­ing months we hope to get back to our best. And we could­n’t have come back to crick­et time at a bet­ter time for Eng­land fans.

2England and Wales Cricket Board logoAll new England, without KP

Posted by & filed under Test Cricket.

In the biggest crick­et news of the day Eng­land have announced Kev­in Pieterson will no longer be in their plans, effect­ively sack­ing their lead­ing bats­man.  This has finally triggered me to write my first art­icle since the dis­astrous Ashes series began nearly 2 months ago.  I’d like to give you fair warn­ing read­er, that as hard as I try to always be pos­it­ive about the great game there are occa­sion­al days where what needs say­ing just does­n’t feel very pos­it­ive.  This is one of them…

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0The Ashes urnFirst blow to England

Posted by & filed under The Ashes.

So the Ashes are under way again with no great sur­prises so far.  Aus­tralia won the toss and bat­ted, Eng­land came out with the ball and made life dif­fi­cult for a very aver­age look­ing Aus­trali­an bat­ting line-up.  The man of the day was without doubt Stu­art Broad, who should have now silenced all but the most loud-mouthed of his crit­ics.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnEngland’s starting 11 picked by Michael Clarke

Posted by & filed under The Ashes.

In a refresh­ingly can­did inter­view Aus­trali­an cap­tain Michael Clarke has announced the Eng­land start­ing 11 for the first Ashes test.  We’re not sure it’s a good thing that he seems to know the team, but the team he lis­ted is the team we would have picked ourselves, so it could be just intel­li­gent guesswork.

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0Corruption Bribe Spot FixingThe IPL — In competition with the Snooker?

Published by & filed under Indian Premier League. Last updated .

Two of my favour­ites sports have dom­in­ated the sports news pages this week, but sadly for all the wrong reas­ons.  The last few years have seen a sig­ni­fic­ant increase in the num­ber of reports of gambling-related cor­rup­tion, is this a case of increas­ing crime or increas­ing crime detec­tion?… Read Full Article