Posts Categorised: Uncategorised

0England and Wales Cricket Board logoA game of nerve?

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It’s that time again — the nights are long, the air is cold, but soon the radio will fire into life and bring the sounds of Aus­trali­an sum­mer to our ears. Will Eng­land come back from the pre­vi­ous white­wash with a win (as they did in 2010-11, or will Aus­tralia com­plete a 3rd white­wash in 4 series. I for one am bet­ting it won’t be a draw!
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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.

0Graeme Swann announces immediate retirement

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Amongst the wreck­age of the Ashes tour comes anoth­er seis­mic bomb­shell — the best Eng­lish spin­ner in a gen­er­a­tion has handed his tick­et in.

Yes it’s true — Graeme Swann has announced his imme­di­ate retire­ment. What a massive loss. Swann was a great play­er, com­pet­it­or, fight­er and all-round team man. He could even hold a bat the right way round.

Hav­ing taken 255 wick­ets in his test career at a shade under 30 a piece, his record is there for all to see and it’s going to be very hard to replace him. As always with Eng­land there’s hardly a queue of spin­ners banging down the door to take his place in the side. So does that mean we go back to the days of only ever pick­ing a twirler when the pitch suits rather than a first choice?… Read Full Article

1England — just what is up??

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What has happened to Eng­land? In the last two tests they have been appalling. I can’t think of any pos­it­ives to take out of either game.

The bat­ting line up has been short of runs for some time now. The bowl­ers won the Ashes for Eng­land last time round, des­pite the best efforts of the much her­al­ded bat­ting line up to snatch defeat from the jaws of vic­tory (the won­der­ful Bell aside) and now, in Aus­trali­an con­di­tions, Eng­land are really up against it. The bats­men are con­tinu­ing to struggle but what is most wor­ry­ing is the way they are get­ting out – care­less and lazy shots and a lack of applic­a­tion. You expect fire­works from Kev­in Pieterson early on in an innings but not the oth­ers.… Read Full Article

1England and Wales Cricket Board logoAussies Tonked — Now to the Future

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

Firstly an apo­logy for not updat­ing the site much of late – along with the oth­er author for this site I’ve been on a drive through Europe.

We are back now though, so fear not.

So, Eng­land wrapped up the Ashes with a barn­storm­ing per­form­ance on the last day to well and truly send them pack­ing. A lot has been writ­ten already about England’s per­form­ance and, in par­tic­u­lar, Stu­art Broad’s per­form­ance. It was excel­lent, end of.

So I’m going to con­cen­trate on some­thing a little dif­fer­ent, a little off-centre if you will.

When Aus­tralia were at their peak a few years back (seems so long ago now!) the one mis­take they made was not to blood up-and-com­ing young­sters so they had a chance to exper­i­ence the highs and lows of test match crick­et.… Read Full Article

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

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

Published by & filed under Uncategorised. Last updated .

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

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