Afghanistan and Rashid Khan have played most of their games against lesser lights and they were duly made to pay in the World Cup against the No 1-ranked sideThere are many ways to feel alone on a cricket field. In the hell of a falling-apart dressing room, on the long walk out, or the long walk back. And then there is the personal torment of being Rashid Khan at Old Trafford on Tuesday.Rashid, whose smiling face is currently stopping and starting as it travels around Manchester on the side of various buses, is one of the best one-day bowlers in the world, and last year he became the youngest ever No 1 in the ICC rankings. His on-the-spot googlies and...
The environment Morgs has created and his standing as captain make you realise that decisions are made solely for the team’s benefitCricket can produce some amazing feelings on the field and I have been lucky enough to experience a few along the way. But this past week has been a reminder that, even midway through a home World Cup, nothing can beat the moment your child comes into the world.To say it has been a hectic time would be an understatement. On Tuesday evening I was due to drive to Southampton for England training before the West Indies game. But both my wife, Firuza, and I had a sense things might be about to happen on that front so I...
In two decades playing against England, the opening batsman has rarely faced a bowler as quick as Jofra ArcherAccording to the official statistics Chris Gayle is 188cm tall. These days, when he bends down to touch his toes he seems to feel every last one of them. Gayle made a dip in their direction right before he stepped over the boundary rope at the Hampshire Bowl on Friday, the idle stretch of a man only lately out of bed and getting ready for the day ahead. It was his last half-hearted gesture towards a warm-up before beginning this, his 521st international innings for West Indies, and his last against England unless the two teams play again in the knockout rounds...
In two decades playing against England, the opening batsman has rarely faced a bowler as quick as Jofra ArcherAccording to the official statistics Chris Gayle is 188cm tall. These days, when he bends down to touch his toes he seems to feel every last one of them. Gayle made a dip in their direction right before he stepped over the boundary rope at the Hampshire Bowl on Friday, the idle stretch of a man only lately out of bed and getting ready for the day ahead. It was his last half-hearted gesture towards a warm-up before beginning this, his 521st international innings for West Indies, and his last against England unless the two teams play again in the knockout rounds...
Opener smashes 153 runs to set the tone for the World Cup hosts and suggest to the selectors that he could do something similar at the other end of the summerThe first of the sixes flew far over cow corner, across what must be the longest boundary in English cricket. The bowler, Mehedi Hasan Miraz spun on his heel to watch it go. He stared after it as if he had spotted some distant comet, or perhaps a shower of them, since the second six went in a similar direction just a few seconds later, a little shorter and a little straighter this one, over long-on, and then the third followed right after, wider this time, nearer midwicket. It was...