Posts By: Jon Scaife

0Hotspot Snickometer Hawkeye DRSA growing number of bad DRS decisions…

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So, the intriguing 1st Ashes Test at Trent Bridge con­tin­ues to be excit­ing with no clear win­ner emer­ging as yet.  How­ever I want to look back to a poten­tially key moment of the game — the “not out” decision giv­en to Aus­trali­a’s Agar.  Let me be clear — no fault can be laid on any of the play­ers or on-field umpires — only on the DRS sys­tem and the umpire man­aging it.  There have been sev­er­al wrong decisions in this Test match and in the recent cham­pi­ons trophy, lets look at each of them in turn.… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnIt’s time… Ashes predictions

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

So, the biggest sport­ing event of 2013 is finally upon us, which means it’s time for me to stick my neck out and pre­dict a res­ult. I’ll start by con­fid­ently pre­dict­ing an Eng­land vic­tory. I’m not so con­fid­ent of the mar­gin of vic­tory but I think it will be at least 2, but as I don’t think Eng­land will ever have a bet­ter chance I’m going to really risk the “com­ment­at­ors curse” and sug­gest Eng­land could man­age a 5 0 whitewash.

I’m not con­vinced that Aus­tralia have an exper­i­enced enough bowl­ing attack to exploit the Eng­land weak­nesses. I am sure the Aus­trali­an bat­ting line up is going to be giv­en a rough time by the Eng­land seam­ers and the 6 left handers are going to struggle on dry wick­ets against Graeme Swan.  Unless weath­er or injur­ies inter­vene I don’t see how the Aus­sies can outscore Eng­land consistently.

If Eng­land can make 350+ in the first innings (hav­ing won the toss) I expect them to win the first test.  I’ll guess the scores will be about 400, 350, 300, 200 which will give Eng­land a 150 run vic­tory around lunch on day 5. Let’s find out how silly I look by Sunday afternoon…

0Blofeld & BaxterBlofeld & Baxter — Memories Of Test Match Special

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A couple of nights back I went to Shef­field City Hall with a few of the fam­ily to see Henry Blofeld and Peter Bax­ter doing what they do best — telling stor­ies and reveal­ing some of what goes on in the TMS box.  Unlike many “per­formers” they star­ted on time at 7:30 and car­ried on (with a short inter­val) until past 10pm.  If they’re com­ing to a place near you and you have a free even­ing I really recom­mend get­ting a tick­et and going down — it was one of the best even­ings of enter­tain­ment a crick­et fan could ask for… Read Full Article

0Broken WicketBest bowling attack in the world?

Published by & filed under Test Cricket. Last updated .

Aus­trali­an coach Mickey Arthur has giv­en an inter­view in which he said that he thinks the cur­rent Aus­trali­an bowl­ing attack is the best in the world!  I’m tak­ing this in the spir­it of the tra­di­tion­al “Glenn McGrath” pre-ashes wind up speech, but Arthur did­n’t say they were just bet­ter than the Eng­land bowl­ing attack (dubi­ous enough in itself) but bet­ter than all the oth­ers in the world too.  So should Eng­land really be quak­ing in their boots?… Read Full Article

0Traditional Spirit of CricketWhere’s the spirit of cricket?

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So we’re only x days into the ICC cham­pi­ons trophy and there have been 2 very dis­ap­point­ing incid­ents involving play­ers in the tour­na­ment, one on the pitch and one off.  Whilst crick­et has had issue with gambling related cor­rup­tion (e.g. Han­sie Cronje or the Spot-Fix­ing scan­dal from 2011) the game has a repu­ta­tion for good spir­it and hon­est play between play­ers.  Are these recent events a sign that times are chan­ging, or are they merely an unfor­tu­nate blip?
… Read Full Article

1Cricket BoxThe Bowler’s Holding… innuendo still going strong

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Almost every crick­et fan will have heard the fam­ous quote, attrib­uted to Bri­an John­ston, “The Bowl­er­’s Hold­ing, the Bats­man’s Wil­ley”.  Wheth­er or not this really was said live on air no longer mat­ters a great deal, it is bril­liantly rep­res­ent­at­ive of the many double entendres that have fea­tured in crick­et com­ment­ary before and since.  That latest in this fine tra­di­tion was offered up yes­ter­day by Charles Dag­nall in his com­ment­ary on the Cham­pi­ons Trophy match between Pakistan and South Africa, when, in describ­ing the 7ft1 Mohammed Irfan of Pakistan, he announced “He’s just got a monu­ment­ally big handle… so to speak”.  After a good chuckle I set about com­pil­ing a list of some of my favour­ites, which I present below.
… Read Full Article

0TMSBroadcasting brilliance by TMS — The England Cricket Sermon

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What ori­gin­ally got me fol­low­ing inter­na­tion­al crick­et was an early expos­ure to Test Match Spe­cial.  As we all know, test crick­et isn’t always the most break­neck paced sport, and filling in the time between overs, the drinks breaks, lunch, tea, and “Brit­ish-sum­mer” inspired inter­rup­tions is not an easy chal­lenge.  TMS has done this so well it pretty much jus­ti­fies the license fee on it’s own.  In the most recent 2‑match series I’ve enjoyed “ask the umpire”, I’ve learned about bulbs that repel moles from your garden, and prob­ably the high­light of TMS in 2013, I heard a won­der­ful “ser­mon”, writ­ten for a crick­et lov­ing groom who was get­ting mar­ried whilst the 2nd test was being played.  Thank you to TMS for broad­cast­ing this, and thank you to the Revd Stew­art Fyfe for writ­ing and shar­ing it with the nation via TMS.… Read Full Article

0International Cricket Council logoWhat’s wrong with the ICC test ranking system?

Published by & filed under Test Cricket. Last updated .

Any­one that fol­lows test crick­et will know that all the sides are ranked, for example, at the time of writ­ing South Africa are (rightly) ranked the best side in the world.  I’ve long felt that the sys­tem used to rank teams needs revis­ing, as it often seems to pro­duce rank­ings that are clearly at odds with how well teams have been play­ing.  Let me use the cur­rent rank­ings as an example.

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0New Zealand v England CricketNew Zealand 0–0 England: Good for Test Cricket

Published by & filed under Test Cricket. Last updated .

It’s not often you’ll hear me cheer a series where all of the test matches fin­ished in draws, and it’s even less often that I cel­eb­rate Eng­land fail­ing to win a series.  How­ever that is exactly how I feel about the recent drawn series in New Zea­l­and.  Now before the barmy army hang draw and quarter me, give me a chance to explain myself!

… Read Full Article