0England and Wales Cricket Board logoManagement Need to Stoke the Fire for Success

Published by & filed under England, Test Cricket. Last updated .

Wow, incred­ible, fant­ast­ic. I could go on: the list of super­lat­ives to describe the mag­ni­fi­cent (there, I’ve slipped anoth­er one in!) innings by Ben Stokes in the drawn second test has to rank along­side the best ever knocks in inter­na­tion­al cricket.
I know – points to this writer for stat­ing the bleed­in’ obvi­ous! What his innings does do though is high­light the need for Eng­land to be able to not only spot tal­en­ted indi­vidu­als such as Stokes but to nur­ture them and encour­age them to reach their full poten­tial.… Read Full Article

2The Ashes urnNo Star Shines Bright for Either Side

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

So the Ashes are now at end with Eng­land the vic­tors and Aus­tralia put back in their place. A 3–2 sco­reline flat­ters the green bag­gied ones a little but in truth the last test was a dead rub­ber for Eng­land. They were nev­er going to play to the same level on intens­ity as when they were try­ing to claim the little urn back from our Anti­podean cousins.
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1Cricket Australia logoMichael Clarke — So long

Published by & filed under Australia. Last updated .

So, Michael Clarke has announced his retire­ment from inter­na­tion­al crick­et after the final Ashes test at the oval. Many have already paid trib­ute, we’re not so bothered about doing that. Here’s why.
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0International Cricket Council logoFour day test matches? no thanks!

Published by & filed under Test Cricket. Last updated .

With a few recent test matches fin­ish­ing in 3 or 4 days, there has been talk in some quar­ters about redu­cing test matches to 4 days. We’d like to give a resound­ing no thanks sent back to any such ideas.
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0Cricket Australia logoSteve Smith — world number 1 mouth, not number 1 batsman

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

Con­grat­u­la­tions to Steve Smith who has taken over the “Glen McGrath” pro­fess­or­ship for the pub­lic under­stand­ing of Aus­trali­an hubris. To be fair to McGrath, a man with over 500 test wick­ets, and integ­ral mem­ber of one of the greatest sides of all time, he could be for­giv­en for think­ing his side might white­wash Eng­land, although say­ing it aloud is insult­ing and isn’t a part of the spir­it of respect in which crick­et should be said. Steve Smith how­ever, a man who was pathet­ic the last time he vis­ited Eng­land and pathet­ic again in the cur­rent series (if we exclude his excel­lent double hun­dred which was made on a flat noth­ing pitch at lord’s).
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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.

0Cook shows his mettle in a Ballanced performance

Published by & filed under England, India, Test Cricket. Last updated .

Well done Alistair Cook. OK, so he missed out on mak­ing a cen­tury, just, but to score 95 when the chips were really down took unbe­liev­able char­ac­ter. The only way he was going to silence the crit­ics was with some runs and hope­fully today’s score marks a per­man­ent return to form. The crowd’s reac­tion when he scored his half cen­tury and the ova­tion when he left the field when speaks volumes as to the sup­port for him amongst the crick­et watch­ing pub­lic. He’s a good man and didn’t deserve some of the diatribe fired his way.

Geof­frey Boy­cott has pre­dicted a draw already – and the Rose Bowl pitch looks like it will pro­duce anoth­er unin­spir­ing match where the bat rules supreme. How ridicu­lous. We need pitches that have some­thing on offer for both bats­men and bowl­ers, one that rewards top expo­nents of both dis­cip­lines. So what if the game is over in four days instead of five? Short term fin­an­cial think­ing risks under­min­ing the entire fab­ric of the game – and then where will the money come from?… Read Full Article