Posted by 
That’s our way of saying they were Wooded.
We wrote about the benefits of having Adil Rashid in your side a couple of days ago. Mark Wood offers something similar.
Remember how the middle over used to be? It was like the batsmen saw everything in high-definition and everything moved smoothly and predictably.
Wood and Rashid make it more like you’re watching a shonky internet stream. Everything’s jerky and irritating and every time you settle, there’s another bout of buffering. Eventually you lose your rag and clog a full toss to cover.
They weren’t the only ones to successfully derail an innings either. Afghanistan’s Rashid Khan thought he’d take wickets with his first two balls and then just kind of carried on from there.
Wood shall hereafter be named Oaks. Stokes, Woakes and Oaks sounds an awesome bowling attack.
Congrats on your meteoric rise to 9th in the ICC fantasy league your Maj. Stokes did you proud.
Any news about the fantasy league on Hippity and other regular contributors to this blog? Mike seems to have gone a bit quiet.
As of now, I appear to be in the top 10. I don’t expect that this will last.
I forgot to pick any players and got 0 while all this point-festing was going on, ooops.
Rashid Khan’s performance is no fluke, going by his ODI record to date (63 wickets in 28 matches at 14.74); he’s also the oldest eighteen-year-old ever:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/afghanistan/content/player/793463.html
2 NR and 3 DL method winners out of 10 matches. Sigh.
Hippity targeted last place. My guess is that Gus campaign is working well.
ICC event, and South Africa South Africa-ed again.
That wasn’t choking, that was being gradually strangled over several hours.
Nobody said that C word. The new additional C word could be ‘capitulate’.
This is an excellent opportunity, and one that I shall not spurn.
What you seem to be saying is that it is better to have Wood than not to have Wood. England as a team had Wood, but Australia didn’t have Wood. Much as they tried, they struggled to get Wood throughout the match.
Having Wood enabled England to get penetration, much more so than if they didn’t have Wood. Faced with England’s Wood, Australia were shafted. Indeed, it must have been quite a sight for the Australian batsmen seeing Wood pounding in from the other end.
So, unable to have Wood, what did Australia give to this match? Well, with his fine top scoring innings, they gave Head. Er, Cummins, Johnson, Fanie de Villiers, etc.
In the County Championship meanwhile, Middlesex are getting royally fucked by Lancashire.
Well done Bert. You’ve been missing for a while, but you finally came.
Well done both of you.
Meanwhile against Pakistan, Dickwella is on the rise.
Indeed, Bert’s held his end up. Australia’s batting started well but didn’t stay firm for the crucial later overs when an explosive finish was required – if only they had a Hardik.
There’s more Pakistannery going on today. Pakistan have, like American politics, got so good at parodying themselves that it makes any attempt at parody somewhat redundant.
Almost time for those infinite transfers, and the customary 9-wicket drubbing off those Crafty Lankans on Wednesday!
What crafty Lankans?
Ah yes. Called it yet again at the end-of-work cut-off… Proving quite the expert at this!