Tempers flared and players from both sides lost control in the 2nd test between India and England at Trent Bridge. Sree Santh has already been fined half his match fee for shoulder barging Michael Vaughan and has also accused of deliberately bowling beamers and no-balls during his spell.
Elsewhere, some serious argy-bargy occurred between Kevien Pietersen and Zaheer Khan, after Khan noticed jelly beans appearing on the pitch whilst he was batting. Having cleared one off the pitch, more turned up, convincing him it wasn’t an accident. He then gestured toward KP, raising his bat in protest. KP didn’t back down …read more

India vs England, Lord’s Day 5
Sadly, the match that was truly poised for a thrilling finish, came to nothing as England’s shoddy weather intervened. Day 5 started with India needing some 250 runs for the win, or to save 7 wickets to ensure the draw. England were in a strong position after day 4 following some terrific batting from KP, which he subsequently described as his best batting performance to-date, and some equally terrific bowling from James Anderson and Monty Panesar. Late in the day, Monty yet again claimed the prize wicket of Sachin Tendulkar to set it all up.
In …read more

This is why we love Freddie so much. Embroiled in a “row” over Fredalogate following comments from Michael Vaughan, we were all waiting to hear what Fred had to say about it all. Stoic as ever, Fred shrugged it all off. After meeting Vaughan for lunch, Fred’s outlook on the whole issue was, for want of a better expression, “Am I bovvered?”. The answer, was ‘no’.

“We’ve known each other for a long time,” he added. “There is a lot of history there, and something like this, which is a storm in a teacup, isn’t going to affect that. I’ve …read more

The storm in this week’s tea cup (or is that this week’s storm in the tea cup, I’m not sure, although I don’t think it especially matters) is dredging up of Fredalogate which happened, as far as I can tell, for exactly no reason whatsoever. Whether or not some cricket journo was having a really slow day and decided to cause some mischief, I’m not sure, but the short version of events is that Vaughan apparently blamed Fred for England’s failure in the World Cup, Jim Cumbes (Chief Exec at Lancashire) wagged his finger at Vaughan saying he was out …read more

Oooh-ee. England continued their rampant meander through this World Cup by accidentally beating Bangladesh in their latest Super 8 clash. England appeared to have taken heed of the must-win status, when the bowlers did a good job in bowling the ‘deshi’s out for 143. Sajid Mahmood generated some good pace and did a good job in roughing up the inexperienced-against-bouncy-bowling batsmen, and at the other end, Andersen and Flintoff backed him up. Monty also finally looked in form, taking a useful 3fer towards the end of the innings. It wasn’t a totally convincing performance – they were 70 odd for …read more

The first week of the World Cup came chock full of shock, surprise and unexpected things. Ireland beating Pakistan, Bangladesh beating India, Flintoff getting dropped from the England side, and, of course, the sad news about Bob Woolmer. All things were ‘go’ from the off. But things have settled now as the major teams in the contest start to assert some authority over the so-called minnows. The West Indies continued their run of form, dishing out a beating to Zimbabwe, Australia stuffed The Netherlands, India thumped Bermuda and as I write South Africa are on course to beat Scotland and …read more

England have announced their 15 man squad for the World Cup:

Michael Vaughan (capt)
Ed Joyce
Ian Bell
Andrew Strauss
Kevin Pietersen
Paul Collingwood
Andrew Flintoff
Paul Nixon (wk)
Ravinder Bopara
Jamie Dalrymple
Monty Panesar
Jon Lewis
James Anderson
Liam Plunkett
Sajid Mahmood

There are one or two obvious things about this squad: 1) Vaughan is in it, despite all his recent injury concerns. Certainly Vaughan is the best man for the job in terms of captaincy, but is form on the field is not debatable – he’s out of form, and is an injury risk. In one day cricket, you can’t have one man filling a spot who is not physically available on the field. …read more

What was I saying about this team being in reverse? No sooner was Michael Vaughan back in the team after being out through injury, he is again back out of the team through injury – apparently he’s torn his hamstring. Now, I know that “tearing a hamstring” tends to sound considerably worse than it really is and nowadays modern physiotherapy practices can have him up and dancing in no time at all, but in this instance he won’t be fit for this Friday’s match against Australia and England have renamed Andrew Flintoff as captain. Once again I’m struggling to comprehend …read more

Well one of the big questions was answered yesterday as England managed to scrape a win out of its contest with New Zealand, albeit only just. Neither side played with much conviction, as New Zealand posted a miserable 205 off their 50 overs, and England miserably managed to score the required runs, with just one ball left. There were some plus points to come out of this – Jimmy Anderson found some form with the ball with another 4fer, Flintoff showed some evidence of why he was once the most revered man in cricket with a match-winning 75 off 72 …read more

Despite the 3rd Test, hell, the rest of the series being moreorless a foregone conclusion, all England fans*, myself included, will be watching avidly to see if England could actually get any worse than at Adelaide. Or Brisbane. Doesn’t matter which. The point is they must get better, and they must win this match. (A draw would be OK, but a task of 2 from 2 would be impossible.)
So, in the build up to the crucial encounter at the WACA, have England opted to keep it simple, keep their heads down, and just quietly get about their duty. Hahaha. Of …read more