Australia players taunt Burns that he is just lucky, but English left-hander simply knows how to exploit every opportunityThe way Gary Player tells it, it goes like this. He was practising his bunker game somewhere in Texas when “this good old boy with a big hat stopped to watch”. Player hit his next shot into the hole and the stranger said to him, “You got 50 bucks if you get the next one in.” Player did, so the Texan said he double it if he made three in a row. “Boy,” he told Player as he peeled a hundred off his roll of bills a second later. “I’ve never seen anyone so lucky in my life.”So Player fired back at...
England will put their faith in two bowlers who did not play at Edgbaston – Jack Leach and Jofra Archer – to cause the imperious Australian batsman a few problems at Lord’sJack Leach might have played at Lord’s anyway, given Moeen Ali’s loss of confidence, but a stat doing the rounds during the first Test at Edgbaston certainly helped his cause. Steve Smith has a Test average of 35 against orthodox left-arm spin; against any other type of bowling he averages 70. The stat needs to be qualified – he struggled against the great Sri Lankan Rangana Herath on some viciously turning pitches – but equally it cannot be ignored. And the disparity is becoming more pronounced: CricViz stats show...
Outfield warm-up suggests Sam Curran may be left out while Australia replace James Pattinson with Josh HazlewoodSome summer’s day, this. After six hours of rain, play was abandoned for the day at 4.15pm. There was not so much as a coin toss let alone a ball bowled.There was a brief let-up after lunch, a lull between showers, when everyone got out on the field and pretended they had not seen the forecast for the rest of the afternoon. It lasted just long enough for Chris Jordan to present Jofra Archer with his England cap. Then it started raining again. There was a hint, too, for those watching closely, that England plan to stick with Joe Denly rather than pick Sam...
The ECB trumpeted this summer as a feast of cricket for England but dips in form after World Cup success are commonWhen Eoin Morgan said at the end of the World Cup group stage, during a carnival of cricket that would eventually carry his team to glory, that the experience was proving so intense that “I can’t wait to get away from a cricket field”, there will have been many sportsmen who understood precisely what he was feeling. While fans enjoy the remorseless drama of these great competitions, those actually playing them find they exact a psychological and emotional toll.In October 2018, with many of the players who starred in the World Cup in Russia that summer disappointing in the...
Australia’s star batsman is not resting on his laurels after Edgbaston, once again decorating the game he bruised last yearSteve Smith is ruining Test cricket. Like a maverick cop forced off active duty, he has been back only five minutes but is already laying the town to waste. Or at least this is the perception in some parts of the British Isles.Some objections come from the internet eggs that spawn around comment threads, decrying him as a cheat who should never be allowed near a cricket field again – you know, like all the other ball-tamperers who were banned for life rather than being feted as greats of the game with commentary contracts and hall of fame places. Related: Moeen...