Fastest Test century by Englishman set 120 years ago but hell for leather cricket by batters suggests it will finally be beatenEngland were 48 for five when Gilbert Jessop got to the middle, 215 runs behind. The pitch was tricky, soft, and pitted from where they had been playing on it after the rain, and Australia’s spinners, Hugh Trumble and Jack Saunders, had swept through the best of the batting, Archie MacLaren for two, Johnny Tyldesley for a duck, Lionel Palairet for six, three wickets for 10 runs in as many minutes, then Tom Hayward and Len Braund, both caught behind in single figures. The bookmakers chalked up odds of 50-1 against on the blackboards around the ground. And here’s...
The idea that defeat would be acceptable as long as we gave it a go never got anywhere near any team I played inDuring the summer, as the Test side being reshaped by Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum found immediate success on home soil, there was very much a feeling among knowledgeable cricket people that come their first trip abroad conditions in Pakistan would present much more of a challenge. But this team continues to write their own script, ignoring the conventions of the game, and even the flattest of pitches in Rawalpindi could not restrain them.I have never seen such total alignment between a head coach, his captain, and the managing director, Rob Key, who selected them. I think...
Can international cricket stay relevant with dead rubbers cropping up all over a dead-rubber logjam of a schedule?If you were listening carefully you might just have learned the answer to an ancient riddle in Melbourne, where Australia finished off their whitewash of England in the Contractual Obligation one-day international series on Tuesday. They won the third game by 221 runs, the largest ODI defeat in England’s history. A record, then, and not the game’s only one. There were 10,406 paying spectators in the ground, the smallest recorded audience for an Australia one-day game at the MCG.It turns out a team falling down when there’s no one around to hear it do still make a sound and it’s something like Jos...
Three-match series starts in Adelaide on Thursday and is a rare chance to test 50-over tactics before World Cup next yearLike many a distressed film protagonist, you could fall to your knees and lash the heavens with the eternal question: why? When you look at this week’s 50-over international series between Australia and England, with the first match in Adelaide coming four days after England sealed a 20-over World Cup title in Melbourne, it is puzzling to see the supposed pinnacle of one format followed by the pedestrian in a slightly different variation. Australia did need to play a series against England for Super League points, to qualify for the next 50-over World Cup – but that series happened back...
All-rounder brought back memories of 2019 with his ability to produce his very best when under the most severe pressureIt was Joe Root who probably best summed up Ben Stokes and a career that will for ever be defined by far more than just the numbers. Speaking in Phoenix from the Ashes, the documentary about the life and times of England’s champion all-rounder, Root put it simply: “The big moments find him.”One certainly found Stokes at Eden Gardens six years ago, the last time he played a world final decked out in red. That fateful deciding over he bowled to Carlos Brathwaite saw four successive sixes soar into the night sky like fireworks, West Indies were crowned T20 world champions...