Posts By: Jon Scaife

0The Ashes urnAm I in an alternate universe?

Posted by & filed under The Ashes.

Can I just double check with our read­ers — Eng­land did win the Ashes 3–0 at home this sum­mer did­n’t they?  I’m not stuck in an altern­ate uni­verse where Eng­land were thrashed?  I’ll con­tin­ue on the assump­tion that I am in fact in the same uni­verse as every­one else, and that Eng­land did indeed win, in which case I have to assume that a large sec­tion of the media, includ­ing the BBC are the ones in an altern­ate uni­verse.… Read Full Article

3The Ashes urnAshes 2013: Team of the series

Posted by & filed under The Ashes.

One of the things that sur­prised me dur­ing the series was how the pun­dits com­pared the respect­ive wick­et keep­ers — with Brad Had­din get­ting a pretty good press, whilst Matt Pri­or got a slightly neg­at­ive over­all rat­ing. From what I saw I did­n’t think there was much to pick between them, so I thought I’d see how the num­bers stack up. I figured I might as well do the same for the rest of the sides and see if a team of the series emerges that reflects how well indi­vidu­als have played.

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0The Ashes urnEngland losing momentum?

Posted by & filed under The Ashes.

So, as the final test heads towards a rain soaked draw the pun­dits are search­ing for some­thing to chat­ter about. They finally seem to have got bored of tak­ing pops at the DRS sys­tem, and it isn’t crick­et to kick a team whilst they’re down (i.e. Aus­tralia) so inev­it­ably the atten­tion has turned to Eng­land. It seems that win­ning the series 3–0 (as will doubt­less be con­firmed in around 30 hours time) and win­ning 3 ashes series on the trot is a sign that Eng­land are “los­ing momentum”. What nonsense.

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0The Ashes urn3–0 to England… what have we learned?

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

I’ve been away on hol­i­day for the past 2½ weeks and haven’t had chance to write about the crick­et. Dur­ing that time there have been 2 more Ashes test matches and Eng­land have exten­ded their lead to 3–0. Hav­ing been away from all the talk­ing heads I haven’t heard what they have to say, so here are some of my own thoughts, unin­flu­enced by the pundits.

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0Hotspot Snickometer Hawkeye DRSWhy is DRS technology coming under fire?

Published by & filed under Uncategorised. Last updated .

I actu­ally star­ted the out­line of this art­icle over 2 weeks ago. Since then I’ve been abroad, whilst the cri­ti­cisms of DRS have just got louder. There wont be any fence sit­ting from me — I’m a big fan of the DRS sys­tem, and I intend to deal with all the cri­ti­cisms I’ve heard and put for­ward a sol­id case for the use of tech­no­logy in cricket.
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0Cricket Australia logoWhere do Australia go from here?

Posted by & filed under The Ashes.

So, the second Test is over, and Eng­land have won com­pre­hens­ively, and with it, almost cer­tainly retained the Ashes. A lot of dis­cus­sion is already focussed on what Aus­tralia can do to get some pride back in this series, and how they can rebuild for the return series this winter in Aus­tralia. The focus is on Aus­trali­a’s bat­ting line up, so let’s look at some num­bers from the last 2 tests… Read Full Article

0The Ashes urnThe Ashes: Second Test — Day 1

Published by & filed under The Ashes. Last updated .

So, anoth­er day of excep­tion­ally enter­tain­ing Test crick­et is over, and the second test match is well and truly under way. Pleas­ingly today has­n’t been marred by any poor decisions (by umpires or play­ers), but I was dis­gus­ted by the mis­taken boo­ing of Jimmy Ander­son. I’ll talk a little more about that later, but first some pre­dic­tions (admit­tedly a day late)… Read Full Article