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Continue readingTag: Steve Smith
Australia were far and away the funniest cricket team in 2018 – but who was their MVP?
7 minute read The story of international cricket in 2018 is really just all the stuff that happened with Australia. This seems a bit narrow and exclusive for an end-of-year retrospective, so we thought we’d instead focus on all the funny things that happened in 2018 to try and broaden it out a
Continue readingThe Steve Smith headline generator
2 minute read Steve Smith was spotted having a beer in New York last week. Several newspapers ran really stupid stories about it with really stupid headlines. We were going to write about the stupidest one but then we forgot what it was and they also deleted the story. Fortunately, we’ve now remembered,
Continue readingWhy did Steve Smith and Cameron Bancroft think that cheating using sandpaper was worse than doing the exact same cheating using something that wasn’t technically sandpaper?
3 minute read When we first saw Cameron Bancroft tampering with the ball using sandpaper, we thought to ourself: “That is sandpaper” – and so did everyone else. We were therefore very much surprised when he later claimed that it was not in fact sandpaper but something akin to home-made sandpaper. “We had
Continue readingHas David Warner really ‘gone rogue’ and if so, why? Let’s examine the evidence
4 minute read Absolutely the best recent headline about Australia’s ball tampering is the one on Fox Sports suggesting that David Warner has ‘gone rogue’. The evidence for David Warner’s rogue-going is that (a) he was sitting on his own at one point and (b) he drank Champagne with friends who weren’t cricketers.
Continue readingAustralia have been caught ball-tampering. But what was the worst aspect? And what was the funniest?
4 minute read Well this is very much hilarious but also reprehensible because saying the second bit is part of the unwritten contract we have all entered into as cricket fans. Australia have been caught ball-tampering, a simple statement that doesn’t really do justice to all that’s happened and how people have reacted
Continue readingSteve Smith the ball-eater and other stories: England’s ODI series win over Australia in old-school stats
2 minute read Remember averages and strike-rates? We do. Let’s take a look at some of the meat and potatoes stats for England’s 4-1 one-day series win over Australia. Steve Smith ate balls The Australian captain ate up 148 deliveries over the course of the series and yet paid his team back with
Continue readingThe four stages of Steve Smith’s recurring metamorphosis into a batsman
2 minute read Steve Smith is not a good batsman. Not always. Very rarely, in fact. As far as we can tell, he’s generally only half-decent at the moment bat strikes ball and only very rarely before or afterwards. Here are the four stages Smith passes through for every single delivery he faces.
Continue readingVideo: The Barmy Army goad Steve Smith about his use of DRS
< 1 minute read Like most wild animals, The Barmy Army are generally best viewed from afar – ideally on television or at the very least with some sort of robust barrier between you and them. They can also be very funny. Australians sometimes struggle to comprehend that the same bounce that can make
Continue readingSteve Smith named man of the series as Australia fans laud captain’s attacking approach
2 minute read Fans and pundits alike are agreed that Steve Smith will be the difference between the two sides in this year’s Magellan Ashes (movement rate of all ships is increased by two). He has therefore been named man of the series, even though we’re barely halfway through the first Test. Some
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