< 1 minute read Let’s get an early moan in about the five-match one-day series that’s taking place between England and Australia this summer. It’s not just the fact that it’s pointless and elbows aside the build-up to a Test series against South Africa. It also sabotages the experience of watching next year’s Ashes
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Ashes series were already too frequent
2 minute read We’d like to add a slightly more sober footnote to our post from last Friday. We described back-to-back Ashes series as being ‘quite literally the worst idea of all time’. We stand by that and would like say that it’s actually the worst idea by an even greater margin that
Continue reading10 Ashes Tests in a row
2 minute read Sweet fucking Christ, does everyone in the world of cricket suffer from all three major forms of retardation? This is quite literally the worst idea of all time. Back-to-back Ashes series. Ten England v Australia Tests in a row. Does no-one who has control over anything have even the most
Continue readingOverheard in our local
< 1 minute read Three of the least cricket people you could ever imagine. One guy had been explaining how he could never move abroad because he’d just bought a 50 inch plasma TV. Here are some sample quotes. “It’s like the World Cup, but the Ashes is only ever played between England and
Continue readingEngland’s Test selectors got everything right
2 minute read It’s not cool to say that. But we’re not cool. We once did a live Twitter review of a cricket computer game while drinking real ale. On the face of it, picking a Test side is simply a matter of finding your 11 best players and then saying their names
Continue readingAn Ashes graph
< 1 minute read Bert writes: Ged has proved that life is better explained by diagrams, so I’ve made a graph. It shows the innings scores from this Ashes series. The fall of wickets is indicated by numbers. I’ve used blue for England because they play ODIs in blue, and yellow for Australia because
Continue readingAnother reason why Australia lost the Ashes
< 1 minute read Beer sales are down. Moisturiser sales are through the roof. The metrosexualisation of Australian society has damaged the cricket team immeasurably. No-one eats steak any more; they all eat scallops in an Indonesian-style jus. When Simon Katich isn’t in Sydney, male body hair in the city is down by a
Continue readingThree innings victories and one Ashes win
< 1 minute read On balance, you would have to say that this tour of Australia probably went a bit better than expected. Which is better: winning or doing it in such a way that Australia look shit? Don’t answer that. You don’t have to. You can have both.
Continue readingWhen the England cricket team became ruthless
< 1 minute read We’ve always asked that England become more ruthless. Now it seems to be happening and by the jackal head of Anubis it’s a good feeling. England have been good before, but in continually passing 500 and repeatedly recording innings victories over the course of the 2010-11 Ashes, they’ve added something
Continue readingIan Bell, James Anderson and doing a bit better when things aren’t in your favour
2 minute read It’s always tempting to judge players on their best days, but with anything long-term – a cricket career, a relationship, an overnight stint watching the Ashes on TV – a better form of evaluation is to look at what happens when things aren’t in your favour. You learn a lot
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