Fast bowler hits speeds of up to 95mph to show what England have been missing and give Australia’s batsmen a shockIn the … sorry, let’s try again, a little quicker. In the ti … and once more. In the time … OK, let’s press on. They say the average adult reads at 300 words a minute. Which means that in the time it took you to read the first word of this article the ball had just left Mark Wood’s hand, and while you read the second it has travelled the length of the pitch, and by the time you finished the third it had landed, changed direction and beaten the batsman. Who, when they’re facing bowling of Wood’s pace,...
After his contentious dismissal of Jonny Bairstow, England’s bete noire was given a hostile reception in Yorkshire“Just wait til Carey comes out.” The booing began before he even appeared, in fact. They were booing in the Western Terrace from the moment the umpires walked on to the field after tea. Without the benefit of the backstory, you might have supposed an entire stand of passionate England cricket fans were dissing their own team, the soundwaves reaching the fielders long before the Australian batting pair followed them on to the ground. Not unlike a ball leaving Alex Carey’s hands before Jonny Bairstow walked out of his crease.“He’s not worth booing,” said Nick to his friend Annie. “I’m not wasting my breath.”...
The issue in this toxic Lord’s Test lies with the ever-nebulous notion of the spirit of the gameFrankly, it’s just not Bazball, old boy. On a febrile, toxic, at times mildly hallucinogenic day at Lord’s the cricketers of England and Australia produced one of the most obscurely rancorous days of high summer sport seen in this country.Australia’s players were barracked by MCC members as they walked into the pavilion at the lunch break, with reports of “physical contact” initiated by the red-trousered ultras. The Lord’s crowd booed and jeered across four gruelling hours from midday to the close of play, a level of hostility that has surely never been witnessed inside this most mannered of environments, a place where a...
In this series everyone’s a winner, until pesky facts get in the way – Ashes defeats on home soil are not forgottenThe bars are empty. The food village is deserted. Fish goujons and hog roast slowly drying out on industrial hotplates. Stewards perched on the edge of their boundary chairs, no longer looking out for potential oil protesters. Long faces in the Long Room, the members in mutiny. They haven’t been this angry since the Icec report came out. Out in the middle, Ben Stokes playing cricket from the gods. The target is thinning. The Ashes are alive.What larks we had! They talk in the England camp about making memories, and as the noise swelled, as the afternoon throbbed with...
Tourists steered clear of a repeat of 2019’s miracle defeat by finally ending England’s resistance after Bairstow drama“The dream is always the same,” says Joel Goodsen at the start of Risky Business. And it is, even if everyone’s version is different. He dreams of missing an exam that will ruin his future. Others can’t find their batting kit when they’re due in the middle, or have to flee an enemy who is always right behind them. They wake, they stumble through their day, then back into the halls of sleep.Australia’s class of Headingley 2019 would have had some dreams after Ben Stokes pulled off his last-day miracle. After one night’s sleep their head coach Justin Langer made them watch the...