A press release! For us!

Hilariously, we've been sent a press release, just like a proper cricket news place. Here's what it is:

We don't really understand much of the accompanying bumpf, even though it hasn't got too many misplaced apostrophes and is therefore of quite a high grammatical standard for a press release. Essentially the MCC Museum has joined forces with Bletchley Park Post Office to produce a series of "postal covers". They don't deign to explain what a postal cover is, but in the spirit of investigative journalism we've found out. This is what Bletchley Park Post Office's website says about them:

"The term 'cover' originates from the early coverings used to protect documents during transit, silk, or oiled cloth being replaced by the more convenient paper envelope.

A first day cover is basically an envelope where the postage stamps have been cancelled on their first day of issue."

That doesn't really make things any clearer for us, but if you want to buy whatever it is, go to www.bletchleycovers.com.

If anyone else has got a press release about cricket, please send it. We'll be baffled and probably ridicule your product, but you'll get a whole post just for yourself.

Michael Vaughan's recovery - stupid knee

We're getting more and more frustrated with Michael Vaughan's knee. Just imagine how Vaughan himself must feel. It's the not-knowing that's the worst part. You injure your knee. You have it operated on. It isn't much better. It's operated on again. Seems okay. No it's not. Another operation and then the same thing again.

Now Vaughan's on his third operation. This one's pretty major and he'll be out of action for four to six months. All the poor man wants to do is play cricket.

It's like when you get a really good Transformer for Christmas - let's say it's Skids (pictured). Skids is a theoritician. We want to be a theoritician when we grow up. Anyway, you get Skids for Christmas and then on Boxing day you tread on him and you break his head. How do you feel? You've spent so long waiting for this day and now all you've dreamed of has been whisked away by a cruel twist of fate. It's absolutely gutting, isn't it? This is what's happening to Michael Vaughan.

Poor Vaughany sitting there cradling an Autobot called Skids which has a broken head (metaphorically speaking).

Twenty20 batting and bowling

We don't know how to cover Twenty20 matches. Any ideas?

Batsmen routinely score at more than a run a ball and bowlers only get four overs to make an impact. It's hard to find an angle. There's the whole 'look at this new fangled version of the game that's ruining/rejuvenating county cricket' approach, but that's getting to be a bit old hat. Twenty20's been around for a couple of years now.

You might point out that players' performances seem to be the least of our concerns, but even our Rob Key thing only grew from the seeds of his great batting. Maybe we'll do a Twenty20 Performance of the Day feature. We can pick someone, get it wrong and you can all berate us. Then we can feel small and apologetic and start putting the Performance of the Day to a vote. None of you will vote, we'll get annoyed and start laying into some poor innocent cricketer to vent our frustration. At least we'll have something to write.

We're in favour of Twenty20, by the way. It's undeniably entertaining, has a wider appeal and gives players an opportunity to innovate.

We just spent an inordinate amount of time trying to remember the word 'innovate' (it's a bit early in the morning for us to think). It made us realise how useful a word 'innovate' is though. There are no real synonyms. Let's drink to 'innovate'... or something...

Right, I'm making a brew. I can't carry on like this.

Rob Key again captains England A

The stage is set. Rob Key will be on his home turf and he'll be playing against international opposition again. We're a little bit disconcerted that the match isn't taking place RIGHT NOW THIS MINUTE, but we'll get over that feeling when the match does start on July the 6th.

Also included are one-day surprises Tim Bresnan, Jamie Dalrymple and Alex Loudon, as well as strike bowler, Matthew Hoggard.

England A games are great. They offer loads of intrigue. Plus they always seem to have Rob Key in them at the moment. There's no sporting occasion that couldn't be improved by the presence of Rob Key.

Rob Key posts:
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24 hours around the cricket

9am - Catch bus.

9.15am - Alight from bus and start walking down our special shortcut to Old Trafford.

9.30am - Remember that our 'special shortcut' was actually a shortcut from where we used to live and not from the bus stop. We've actually added distance to our journey.

9.40am - Arrive at ground.

11am - We don't really know several of the people we're sitting with. They go and get beer. It seems early.

11.15am - The people seem keen to get more beer. We start to feel under pressure. If it weren't for the relaxing properties of the beer, we'd probably be having a panic attack about now.

11.30am - The bulbous pint-glass bottom situation comes to light, as the first drink is spilt. This will be a theme for the day.

1pm - We start a beer-glass worm. When we say 'we', we in fact mean the people we're with, together with the row of people in front of us. We provide some glasses though. We feel that we were there at The Worm's inception.

3pm - A large cheer greets the joining of The Worm with a relative.

3.30pm - The Worm is dismantled by a steward. Our dreams of a beer-glass boundary rope are quashed.

6.30pm - The match finishes and we walk over to the grocers to buy some coriander.

6.40pm - The shopkeeper refuses to let us in on "the secret" to growing coriander well. He appeases us by telling us that it just grows better in Pakistan and places.

6.45pm - As we leave the shop the shopkeeper reveals that the thick, lush coriander we have bought was grown in Manchester. We reach a tentative agreement that he will reveal "the secret" the next time we purchase coriander.

9pm - We are at home. We start to get a hangover, which is very disconcerting at this hour.

9.30pm - We fall asleep on the settee.

10pm - We fall asleep on the bed, but in our clothes.

3am - We awake to find that the Beer Badger has already visited. In addition to taking all of our money and doing something in our mouth, the Beer Badger has brought a profound sense of our own worthlessness which is quite astounding in its clarity.

4am - Curse the Beer Badger for his work as it is denying us the sleep that we so desperately need.

8.30am - Arrive at work and check the clock for what is likely to be a very, very, very, very long day.

Note: The picture depicts an occasion when Mark Richardson of New Zealand hit the ball into the crowd and it landed in someone's beer. We thought it was an apt photo.

ODI at Old Trafford, England v Sri Lanka

We're going to the one-dayer between England and Sri Lanka at Old Trafford tomorrow. Here's what will happen:

- We'll struggle to get to the ground via a complex series of bus journeys.
- It'll rain.
- England will either post a mediocre total and watch Sri Lanka tear it down to size in the first 15 overs OR Sri Lanka will post a decent total and England will slip further and further behind the run-rate.
- England supporters will hold out hope for a career-defining performance from one of the England players until we can't kid ourselves any more. At that point we'll concentrate on the drinking.
- Everyone will get drunk.

We might write something about it, but don't hold out any hope. Any chance of a first day of the cricket season-style photo diary will be washed away in a sea of shandies. (We won't really be drinking shandy - it's just a turn-of-phrase.)

Bilal Shafayat - half-term report

Bilal Shafayat's going all right. He's hit two hundreds and is averaging 41.75. We feel proud of Bilal Shafayat. Bilal Shafayat's our guy.

We don't really have any advice for Bilal Shafayat either. We were thinking of squashing his photo vertically to make him look even shorter to make up for the fact that we don't even have any Bilal Shafayat jokes.

Why do we always end these things with a rubbish post, so that it's the first one that anyone sees when they visit the site?

Verdict: B
Score more runs. Gain the ability to be Rob Key.

Mark Butcher - half-term report

Mark Butcher's not finished yet. We feel mighty sorry for Mark Butcher. Very few sportsmen's careers come to an end as they would wish, but Mark Butcher had been getting better and better for years when a series of injuries whisked away his England spot.

He's averaging 51.15 so far in the County Championship and has hit two hundreds.

Verdict: B+
Should probably try being a little bit younger. He's definitely missing a trick there.

Will Jefferson - half-term report

Will Jefferson's been injured all season. He's probably having trouble getting blood up to his head.

Actually he damaged tendons in his left wrist trying to open a hotel window. We don't laugh at freakish injuries because it's the kind of thing that happens to us. Having said that, one of our friends managed to give himself a massive cut round his eye and pretty much knock himself out taking off a jumper. We struggle to avoid laughing at that.

Verdict: U
Must play a little bit of cricket at some point.

Rob Key - half-term report

It's been a simply awesome season for Rob Key so far. While he's averaged only 28.9 with the bat, he has been Rob Key for every single match so far. You can't argue with class like that. We're staggered that no other player has managed to be Rob Key for even a second. That's the talent this man has. He's on another level. He's not on Another Level though - that would be hideous.

Maybe he could start scoring some hundreds now though. That would be most welcome.

Verdict: A+
It's a good job he didn't bat well or we'd have had to invent some sort of uber-grade.

Rob Key posts:
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Tom Smith - half-term report

We're sick of using that picture of Tom Smith, but he's got such a boring name it's hard to find pictures of him. If you've got one will you send it to us?

Tom Smith has faded a bit since the start of the season. We still don't know whether he's 'brisk', 'lively' or 'bowls a heavy ball' either. He's very enigmatic. We should give him points for that alone, even though we're not using a points system and are in fact just plucking grades out of the air with very little consideration.

In the spirit of that:

Verdict: B-
Encouraging and enigmatic. We haven't seen much of his batsmanship, which is rumoured to be quite tidy.

Sajid Mahmood - half-term report

Sajid Mahmood's England matches have been a mixed bag. After a pretty persuasive Test debut, he fell away a bit and was dropped for the third Test. In the one-dayers he's mostly been bowling wides down the leg side. He's not the only one, but that doesn't really defend it.

In first-class cricket this season he's taken 17 wickets at just 18.47. That's good enough.

Verdict: B
Let's be generous and say that leg side wides are a tactic.

Matt Prior - half-term report

We didn't even remember that Matt Prior was one of our Ones To Watch. He is though. We write about Matt Prior much more than we think. We're not really sure why.

He's averaging 42.88 at the midway point and has hit one hundred. Not bad, but having had an England chance and pretty much wasted it, he needs to do more.

We still think he's one for the future and he's maintaining decent form.

Verdict: B
Needs to catch the eye more. Maybe he could bat while on fire or something.

Mark Davies - half-term report

Mark Davies is in his usual position, topping the bowling averages. Mark Davies is currently averaging nine with the ball. That's incredible. That's just about the best average there's ever been.

True he's only played one match and only taken one wicket, but don't steal his thunder. He is Norse, after all. He's probably got a Thor hotline so he can get thunder whenever he wants it, so the joke's on you if you try and steal his thunder.

Verdict: A+
Keep up the insanely good work. Maybe try and get a second wicket.

Graeme Swann - half-term report

Graeme Swann's batting average is 31.77, which is all right. His bowling average is 48.66, which is hopeless.

Being as he's a spin bowler, things could pick up for him later in the season as the pitches get drier, but we're not anticipating great things any more. Graeme Swann's been bumbling around at this level for a while now. We're losing confidence that he's going to improve. Having said that, spinners often mature later and can usually play longer. That's not much good for this season though.

Verdict: D
You're letting yourself down, Graeme. But worse than that: You're letting us down. We know that you don't know us and even if you did, we'd be really nervous and polite and servile, but you really should consider us when you act this way.

We're busy - how can we skive?

We've actually got work to do at the moment. It's not good for King Cricket.

We reckon cricket fans are quite workshy. You've got to be fairly laid-back/lazy to devote so much free time to a leisure pursuit. Has anyone got any good techniques for helping us sidestep the work we're paid to do, thus freeing us up to write childish things about cricket?

And if anyone thinks that we don't need any advice because we're writing this while we should be working, they're wrong. You can NEVER have too many ploys for slacking off.

Ones To Watch half-term report cards

With the County Championship about to make way for Twenty20 for a couple of weeks, we've decided to take a look at each of our Ones To Watch to see how they're getting on. We'll do it in no particular order and at no particular times over the next couple of days. There's be links below as they appear.

Graeme Swann
Mark Davies
Matt Prior
Sajid Mahmood
Tom Smith
Rob Key
Will Jefferson
Mark Butcher
Bilal Shafayat

We're sorry Mark Ramprakash

Mark Ramprakash yesterday hit is thirty-third hundred of the week. We bad-mouthed Mark Ramprakash in the post that's linked through his name. We were a little unfair. He's a really good batsman.

Sorry Mark. We were probably just having a bad day. Probably our boss threatened to break our kneecaps again and we impotently took it out on you.

We didn't 'impotently take it out' in the sense that some of you are thinking. Sure, Mark's a looker. But no - we don't do that sort of thing.

Andy Bichel - a bang-up guy

Some of you may be aware that we're really good mates with World Cup winner, Andy Bichel. We're delighted to announce that World Cup winner, Andy Bichel took 6-38 against Derbyshire yesterday.

We've nothing more to add to that other than that World Cup winner, Andy Bichel, is what we call 'a bang-up guy'. It's been pointed out to us that 'bang-up guy' doesn't mean anything and is merely a mish-mash of other phrases. We acknowledge this and continue to use it regardless.

Well done World Cup winner, Andy Bichel. You're a bang-up guy.

Northamptonshire follow-on and then some

There's following-on and there's following-on. Worcestershire declared on 543-9, which contained Phil Jaques's double hundred and also Graeme Hick's 100th hundred for Worcestershire. In response, Northamptonshire were bowled out for 67.

That's got to be about as demoralising as our working life. As we survey all the boxes and familiar ugly, ugly faces, we can identify with Northamptonshire's state of mind. But unlike in life, there's a second innings and our man Bilal Shafayat is currently on 46 not out.

The chief architect of Northamptonshire's destruction (architect's are by nature creative - is it not a bit backwards to talk about 'creating destruction'?) was Zaheer Khan, who seems to be in a bad mood about something - probably the whole 'being dropped from the Indian team' thing. Following on from nine wickets in the last match, he took 5-27. One of his wickets was Ganguly, who he bowled. We can't remember if they're mates or not. We kind of assume that they're not because everyone seems to hate Ganguly, but we haven't checked that.

Cricket video games

Yes, it's one of those posts that's just us sorting out our sidebar. You can't hold it against us though. Look at it. What's that section 'lengthier articles that are borderline serious'? That's essentially pointing out the two least desirable features of those posts and trying to make them plus points. We're deluded.

Buy games

International Cricket Captain 2007 (PC)

Cricket 07 (PS2)

Cricket 07 (PC DVD)

Brian Lara Cricket 2007 (PS2)

Brian Lara Cricket 2007 (Xbox 360)

International Cricket Captain 2006 (PC CD)

Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach (PC)
This post unsurprisingly gathers together the posts from our Cricket Game Day a while back.

Cricket Captain 3
Test Match Cricket - the tabletop game
International Cricket Captain
International Cricket captain 2006
Marcus Trescothick's Cricket Coach
Graham Gooch's All Star Cricket
EA Cricket 2005
EA Cricket 2007
Cricket Life 2007
Robin Smith's International Cricket
Brian Lara's International Cricket 2007
ConnecTV Cricket

Phil Jaques wants to play for Australia

Phil Jaques scored a double hundred in his last game and he scored one yesterday too: 202 off 294 balls. Having been immediately dropped after making Australia's highest one-day international innings on debut, Jaques knows he has to keep making an impact. So he is doing.

'Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen,' is the motto of Australia's selectors when dealing with up-and-coming batsmen. If we were an Australian selector we'd make a list of all the batsmen eligible for the side and then work our way down it until we finally got to someone who wasn't Test standard. It would take a while. We'd carry on working our way down the list even after we'd reached batsmen who weren't up to standard. It would be an unwise decision to employ us as an Australian selector.

Phil Jaques was averaging 89.87 in the County Championship before this game, so now he's topped 100. Bizarrely, that's less than Darren Gough who is currently averaging 114 after three innings (two not outs). Remember when Darren Gough was the next Ian Botham? That was a LONG time ago.

Mark Davies is back

Everyone's favourite Viking Mark Davies is playing cricket again. He's been injured since about the time of the Spanish armada. Now we're just waiting on Will Jefferson of our Ones To Watch. You've won the being injured competition, Will. You can come back now.

Mark Davies took 1-9 off eight overs. That's a fairly typical Mark Davies performance in that it's quite striking in a way (economical and wickets for not much) but not that striking in any newsworthy kind of way. The Vikings wouldn't be proud of that. They liked burning stuff.

As with the previous post King Cricket's still down as we write this, which pretty much confirms our belief that we'd write King Cricket even if no-one were reading it - even ourself.

Busted King Cricket

As we write, King Cricket's still down. We probably did something, but we don't know what. Here's a list of things that we can't do:

Computers
Science
Social interaction
What we're told
Joining in

We hate 'joining in' most of all. It's always something that you never want to do. "Come on. Join in," they say.

"No," we say.

More Rob Key

That could very well be our slogan, but in fact it isn't a chant or a request - just a statement.

Rob Key hit 89 off 92 balls against Essex. He was batting at number five, rather than opening as he normally does. He's obviously spied England's papier maché one-day middle order and fancies a piece of the action. England could do a lot worse and what side wouldn't benefit from Rob's panther-like skills in the field?

It's all pointing to an upturn in form anyway. He's not "in the zone" yet, but he can see the zone and he's on his way. There don't seem to be any barriers or guards or anything, so expect Rob Key to arrive "in the zone" some time in the next couple of weeks.

We can't wait until Rob's "in the zone". He'll be producing beams of multi-coloured light and flying through the air and there'll be loud music that kind of sounds like powerful rock music performed by a herd of angels. Everyone will be gasping and admiring him except the bowlers who will be cowering behind the stumps in FEAR. David Graveney and Duncan Fletcher will come and kneel at his feet, offer him some ruby-encrusted slippers by way of appeasement and usher him back into the England squad.

Rob Key will reward the selectors' faith with a doughty forty-something in the first Test against Pakistan.

Rob Key posts:
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Great news for weekend readers

Some of you may have noticed that we're not writing a great deal at the weekends. We're actually writing nothing. This is because our new house isn't yet connected to the outside world. It's almost like we're doing a normal working week and then taking a break at the weekend. This is ironic, because in our actual working week, we barely lift a finger.

Well great news anyway. Our internet ills should end on Tuesday, so there'll be weekend posting and ill-advised evening posting when we haven't got anything to do and write something just for the sake of it.

And yes, we know that picture of a phone lead is a bit dated. Doubtless you're all on wireless connections in your eco-homes in the clouds, but we're not. Our PC makes a noise like a juggernaut when you turn it on which only abates after a couple of minutes. It's at that point that you notice all the grinding noises. Computers shouldn't grind, should they? They really shouldn't.

Let's say it was Upul Tharanga and not the wides

There's a sense of inevitability about England one-day losses at the moment. You don't know quite how they're going to lose, but they will. They might get themselves in a good position and lose. They might let the game get away from them early on. They'll definitely lose though.

On Saturday, Sri Lanka's batting was pretty ordinary with the exception of Upul Tharanga who hit 120 off 156 balls. He started brightly and got kind of bogged down later in his innings, but his contribution dwarfed that of any of his team mates. There's a case to say that he piled pressure on incoming batsmen by scoring slowly late on, but let's not go down that road.

England lost the game by 20 runs and bowled 21 more wides than Sri Lanka, so there's something to work on for a start. We've nothing else to add really.

Debutant verdicts:

Jamie Dalrymple: Pretty good
Tim Bresnan: Sort of all right

Charlie Shreck takes some wickets for not much

Charlie Shreck was born in Cornwall and doesn't it show? Look at him. Look at his Cornish face. Look at his Cornish hair.

Think he's a genial coastal type at your peril though. He took 8-31 against Middlesex and only one batsman reached double figures.

Zaheer Khan - ten wickets in an innings?

Will Zaheer Khan manage to get ten wickets in an innings later today? He's got nine so far and he's reduced Essex to 186-9. If ever a man was spurred into action by his omission from a Test squad. Zaheer Khan was already the top wicket-taker in the second division even before this match.

We sometimes idly speculate that India's pacemen are unfairly vilified because they do a lot of bowling on unfavourable pitches, but the public don't acknowledge this. When a seeming innocuoso like Zaheer Khan comes over and starts taking bucketloads of wickets, this seems to back that up. Javagal Srinath did the same at the tail-end of his career. Srinath had a decent, if unexceptional career record, but he cleaned up batsmen left, right and centre. If he'd bowled for another nation maybe his average would have been lower and we'd have talked of him in tones more awed than respectful.

We sometimes idly speculate that England's spinners are unfarily vilified because they do a lot of bowling on unfavourable pitches, but then we watch them bowl and they're clearly garbage. Except Monty Panesar. He's ace.

Kabir Ali's back

As in 'returned'. He's not got ankylosing spondylitis or anything. Kabir Ali has been called into England's one-day squad to replace Glen Chapple who's got an abdominal strain.

We like Kabir Ali and not just in our 'he plays for England so we like him' way. We're not totally sure why we like him though, because he's not a particularly fast bowler. If anyone can enlighten us, please do.

He's got a solidity in the one-day game. That opinion is mostly born because he bowled that tight final over in Bloemfontein that led to a tie. Anyway, Kabir's back.

England v Sri Lanka Twenty20 match

For a start, let us say that we like Twenty20. We don't like it in the same way as Test cricket, obviously. We like it how we like artichokes. We forget that they exist, but when we have one, we remember what they have going for them.

Back to Twenty20, all those people who say it's just a slogfest are wrong. The best players are inevitably the best players in all forms of the game. It's also a form of the game that rewards the thinkers. Variety in bowling is the key, second guessing the batsman and canny batsmanship's as much use as outright power. What's wrong with a few sixes anyway? It's not easy to clear the fence, you know.

We quite like the one-off nature of it at the minute though. It feels like an event. It won't last of course. There's already a Twenty20 World Cup on the horizon, which is fine, but there are inevitably going to be a glut of matches preceding that. If there's one thing that international cricket loves, it's overkill.

As for the match, congratulations to Sri Lanka who eked home in a close match thanks to a ballsy final over from Dilhara Fernando, which only went for six runs. The two stand-out performances were both English however: Marcus Trescothick showed encouraging form with 71 off 58 balls and Paul Collingwood managed the best ever Twenty20 bowling performance (How many matches have there been? About five?) with 4-22.

Oh and the one England newcomer who we were quite excited about, Ed Joyce, got injured while fielding. Hopefully he's okay. Check some proper news site to find out the latest.

Phil Jaques, 244 off 274 balls

Phil Jaques, Brad Hodge, Stuart Law, Ian Harvey, Mark Cosgrove, Michael Di Venuto, Darren Lehmann - you've got to have an Australian batsman in your side or you're nothing. Nothing you hear!

Phil Jaques nudged, nurdled, pounded, biffed, stroked, hammered or thrashed 244 runs off 274 balls for Worcestershire against Essex. It was apparently a chanceless, silky, explosive, destructive, combative, extravagant, methodical, stoic, ebullient, classy double hundred.

Australians score runs for fun over here, except for Michael Clarke for Hampshire - he was dire.

Rob Key's plight continues

Following the Lee Daggett debacle, Rob Key has now been dismissed for 0 and 4 in the match against Durham. The Rob Key song in the comments of that post hinted that Rob Key may in fact be mortal. This sets a worrying precedent. Once you start to question the man's genius, where will it end?

You can view more Rob-friendly songs here.

Rob Key posts:
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It's a Brian Lara performance - we should do something special but we can't think of anything

Has he always been called Brian? We must have typed his name a thousand times and it seems positively alien today. Brian? Have we got this right?

Brian Lara's hundreds seem to be less regular these days, but he can still make his mark on a match. Yesterday he hit 120 to help save the second Test against India.

We've commented before on how we think the West Indies' batting line-up is class but suffers from being put in unfavourable positions by the bowling attack. The second Test was a classic example. With a lack of cutting edge, India were able to rack up 588-8. In response, the West Indies crumbled to 215 all out and it was left to Lara to save the game, helping the Windies reach 294-7 in their second knock.

Lara said as much after the game, effectively pleading for the West Indies selectors to give him a genuine fast bowler. It doesn't look like they're going to give him one.

We should probably include some links to other posts about Brian Lara or our views on fast bowling or the West Indies' feeble bowling, but as is often the case, we can't be bothered finding the right articles. We did once describe Brian Lara like this though: "Brian Lara rocks like Megadeth in a hammock being buffeted by a force 10 gale." That's worth repeating.

England's one-day selection "policy"

Hilarious. We've used inverted commas to indicate that the word 'policy' is an inaccurate description. It's like we've been studying at comedy school or something. That's really high-end stuff. We'll be using exclamation marks to make things extra funny next.

We've an idea as to how England can get a half decent one-day side together: They should stop considering EVERYONE as a potential England one-day player. If they limit themselves to the Test team and a handful of fringe players, they'll be picking from a pool of high class players. From there they can pick those most suitable to one-dayers and that team could play, ooh, say, two games in a row with the same line-up.

When we say 'fringe players', we mean fighting for a Test spot. We don't mean players who are being groomed for the Test team in the future. We mean those that are good enough already. On the other hand England have traditionally blooded players in the one-day arena to acclimatise them to international cricket. This has been quite successful, so what do you do?

What do we know anyway? We work in a warehouse. There's nothing worse than listening to someone who thinks they know best about sport when they clearly don't. Next we'll be having slanging matches in the pub about football, pretending that stuff we've read in The Sun is our own opinion. We'll be forming opinions about players we haven't even seen and questioning tactics that we don't even understand.

We never had this kind of existential crisis when we were younger. Maybe that's why David Graveney's looking so pensive on the left - he's wondering how he's qualified to be a selector. You're more qualified than we are, David.

England beat Ireland at cricket

England stole Ireland's best player, Ed Joyce; Ireland's second best player, Eoin Morgan, had to cover for Joyce at Middlesex; and England hit 301-7. It should have been easy considering all of that, but Ireland managed 263-9.

Ireland didn't really look like winning, but that's not the point. Games against inferior opposition should be won convincingly. England can't win the big one-day games, so the least they can do is bully the small teams. It sends some sort of message of professionalism out to other sides if you can do that. When Ireland's captain says that England's bowling attack is toothless what kind of a message does that send to future opponents?

Well played Ireland and good luck in the World Cup. You'll come up against sterner opposition than this England side, although your World Cup opponents probably won't confiscate any of your players.

We are old

It was our birthday yesterday. We didn't get any Transformers, but we did get Freddie's autobiography. We also got a DAB radio for listening to Test Match Special while we do stuff in the garden. We've officially turned into our dad circa 1986. (That's special correspondent 'Dad' to you guys - the man who met Paul Allott and Ehsan Mani and unearthed Andy Solomons.)

Chris Read reacts to his omission from England's one-day squad

...with 135 off 111 balls. Chris Read's a decidedly useful one-day batsman. Is that worth stating? We all know this. That innings contained ten fours and six sixes, although Durham still won the game.

The Jones or Read or maybe, possibly, at a push, one day, Prior debate has been rumbling on tiresomely for too long now. The problem is that there's no real end to it. If Geraint Jones suddenly starts scoring hundreds at will, it might end, but that isn't going to happen. The other possibility is that Jones might follow Simon Jones' lead and pick up regular and career threatening injuries, in which case we could all settle down to the prospect of Chris Read behind the stumps. But again, that doesn't seem likely to happen.

So instead, this is what's going to happen: Geraint Jones is going to play for England. If he fails with the bat, people will say: "He's being picked for his runs and he isn't even getting those." If he drops a catch, people will paint him as Monty Panesar's less-able brother and say that he's a liability. If Chris Read bats well, people will say: "He's the better keeper and his batting has come on in leaps and bounds." This will go on forever. Then we'll all cease to notice if either of them can bat or catch. Meanwhile Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Adam Gilchrist, Kumar Sangakkara and Kamran Akmal will put the pair of them to shame.

Mohammed Kaif keeps the critics at bay

We're obviously in a very boring frame of mind. Look at that title. With that and the preceding post, it's all adding up to an underwhelming day at the keyboard.

We don't know for certain, but we get the impression that Mohammed Kaif has been a target over the last few months. With a billion people to please, every Indian cricketer on the international stage is doing something wrong, but someone's
still got to be bottom of the pile. Mohammed Kaif has been feeling the heat. In the one-day game he's given the impression of playing for himself after a run of poor scores put him in the nation's bad books.

Well in the second Test against the West Indies, he racked up 148 not out. He's obviously a class batsman. You don't get to bat for India for any other reason. He's just been feeling the pressure, we'd say. That pressure should now transfer straight to VVS Laxman who's a sort of default setting for Indian ire.

India's batting - hundreds galore

Why do India seem to make mammoth scores as a matter of course? England are rubbish at it. Having reached 521-6 in the second innings of the first Test against the West Indies, India's batsmen have followed that up with 588-8 in the second Test.

Earlier in the year, we wrote an article for someone about how all of India's batsmen had gone past 150 many times whereas only a couple of England's batsmen had managed it at all. We compared frequency of double hundreds as well and did a sort of head-to-head thing like they always do in the paper.

We thought it was exactly the kind of article that cricket publications liked in that it was full of statistics and vaguely hinted at the outcome of a Test series. Nobody wanted it. It was probably because whenever we try and take writing seriously the product is as dull as our dress sense.

We could try and give a quick overview of that article because that's the kind of thing we're supposed to be writing here. We're not going to do that though. We've a suspicion that somewhere within that article there was a sequence of words that caused us to be "found out". We don't want to run the risk of inadvertently repeating those words here and scaring you all off.

Actually, reading this post back it's quite dull. We seem to have channelled the spirit of the article without using any of the content. We knew it was a cursed article. When we get home tonight we're going to take it outside and give it a damn good shoeing.

A Mark Butcher hundred

One of our Ones To Watch, Mark Butcher, hit 105 yesterday against Leicestershire. He's having a pretty decent season on the quiet. It's not particularly forward-thinking or future-oriented but we'd like to see Mark Butcher in an England helmet again. He'd really found his feet at Test level when he suffered that rash of injuries.

Of course Test careers inevitably end on a downer. That's sport. Time catches up sooner than in other occupations. We just get the impression that Mark Butcher wasn't really past his best.

Tim Bresnan - England one-day surprise number one

Tim Bresnan has been selected in England's one-day squad for the upcoming series against Sri Lanka. If we were feeling harsh we'd point out that a player who's only hit one fifty in the one-day game and taken four wickets only once, hasn't really proved himself. England's selectors are effectively asking him to produce on the international stage something that he's never produced at county level.

But we're not feeling harsh. Tim Bresnan's 21. He's malleable. England are going to make him into the next Gary Sobers.

Maybe our preference for young players is a manifestation of the regret at our own cricketing 'lost' years. If we keep liking young players into old age will we seem weird? We won't will we? It's sport. You don't have to sign any kind of register for having opinions on sport.

Ed Joyce - England one-day surprise number two (although it isn't that much of a surprise)

Ed Joyce is our age and people still call him a young player. This makes us happy. It means that we're still a young player and could yet be 'found' plying our trade in obscurity and whisked into an England development squad. It's unlikely that anyone wielding any England influence would be in the warehouse, of course - which is where we play most of our cricket.

Back to Ed Joyce anyway. Ed Joyce averages 45.77 in first-class cricket and 37.55 in one-day cricket. He was always going to be picked for England as soon as he stopped being Irish. Now that he's got that out of his system expect to see much more of him.

Jamie Dalrymple - England one-day surprise number three

Jamie Dalrymple's a little bit of an unknown quantity to us. He was born in Kenya and played for Oxford University, so he's maybe a little on the posh side for our tastes. We prefer our cricketers of the Ian 'Fatty' Austin genre.

From what we've read over the last couple of years, we get the impression that he has a decent technique with the bat, although we've a suspicion that he bowls off-spin 'a bit'. Either he bowls off-spin 'a bit' or he's 'an occasional off-spinner'. Either way, it's got all the hallmarks of a million England 'all-rounders'. Hopefully he'll just bat.

Jamie Dalrymple's 25, so we guess we're all right with him being in the one-day side.

Alex Loudon - England one-day surprise number four (again, not really a surprise)

Alex Loudon bowls a doosra you know. If you don't know that, you don't know anything about Alex Loudon. It's his 'thing'.

Duncan Fletcher is rumoured to prefer Alex Loudon to Monty Panesar. Duncan Fletcher doesn't know what he's on about. We can see his point with the whole fielding thing, but come on. Alex Loudon? Monty Panesar all the way. The man's well on his way to being a legend. We mean for his bowling as well - not any of that patronising 'look at the funny man falling over trying to stop the ball' thing.

One of Alex Loudon's middle names is 'Rushworth' according to Cricinfo. Would you pick someone called 'Rushworth' for anything?

Glen Chapple - England one-day surprise number five

Glen Chapple really is a surprise. He's Lancashire's answer to Shaun Pollock - a fast bowler who sacrificed his pace in favour of accuracy and who provides useful lower order runs at a quick rate.

Of course renouncing fast-bowling-dom is an unforgivable crime. As is being over thirty (for now). On the other hand, it's kind of warm fuzzy glow territory that finally Glen's found his way into an England squad after a million-and-one A-tours.

Here's what we're hoping will happen: Glen will hit a couple of quick fifties batting at six and keep things tight during the middle overs. That's really a best-case scenario and you wonder why England selectors have made the plunge. It's good to have a Glen in an England squad though. Go on Glen.

Rikki Clarke is less ugly than he was

What's going on here? Before. And after. Before... And after...

Frosted tips, flowing locks and are we imagining it, or is Rikki Clarke less blessed in the front teeth department than he was?

We wouldn't be commenting on anyone's appearance if it weren't for the anonymity of the internet.

Mark Cosgrove double hundred

We're going to have to admit to ourself that we've a penchant for fat cricketers. Rob Key, Inzy, Darren Lehmann, Ian Austin - the evidence is really stacking up. Well by that rationale we'd better add Mark Cosgrove to the list.

Mark Cosgrove is nicknamed 'Baby Boof' for his resemblance to his South Australia team mate Darren Lehmann or 'Boof'. We asked our Australian friend why Darren Lehmann was called 'Boof' but he never really gave us a satisfactory answer. Anyway, Baby Boof, Mark Cosgrove, hit 233 not out off 258 balls for Glamorgan against Derbyshire yesterday. Big hundreds are where it's at. We're not sure about his face though.

He's obviously class. Darren Lehmann says he could win Australia a World Cup. The jury's out though because of the face. Although there is the fat factor...

Monty Panesar's batting

Monty Panesar's batting doesn't seem to be all that bad. He blocked for about an hour with Paul Collingwood in India and he layed into Murali at the death of the last Test, even going so far as to hit him for six. He's obviously not a complete malcoordinate.

Up until now we'd concluded that Monty Panesar hadn't developed particularly good hand-eye coordination because of a childhood spent playing with Transformers. Well if you can hit Murali for six then your hand-eye coordination's not all that bad. It's probably better than ours and we consider ourself 'capable' in the hand-eye coordination stakes.

So this is good news. It means that with practice maybe Monty Panesar will be able to field better than your fat mate who's never been outdoors before.

Sajid Mahmood takes five wickets

In our original Ones To Watch post about Sajid Mahmood, we rather focused on his battle to secure a place in Lancashire's side. Having taken five wickets against Sussex and also impressed for England, surely Lancashire coach Mike Watkinson must have inked him in now.

Mahmood took 5-52 in Sussex's second innings and hopefully that will be the first of several five wicket hauls this season.

We're not really sure why Jon Lewis got the nod ahead of Sajid Mahmood in the last Test. It didn't prove to be a roaring success either, so Mahmood may have actually come out with more credit than if he'd played.

Assuming that Steve Harmison returns for the Test series against Pakistan and ignoring the fact that Andy Flintoff may well not be bowling, who should take the remaining fast bowling slot in the England side, Mahmood or Plunkett? Fortunately, we make no pretence at being even-handed about things like this, so we don't need to justify our decisions. We simply list all the things that we like about one player and all the things that we don't like about his rival. It looks like a straightforward decision then, even though in reality it isn't. Lying - it's the finest form of rhetoric.

So here we go. Sajid Mahmood is tall, fast, swings the ball and reverse swings the ball. Liam Plunkett is slower, can't reverse swing the ball and hasn't proved as much of a success with the bat as some people had expected. Sajid Mahmood must get the final bowling spot. How can you argue with a reasoned and balanced argument like that?

Of course if James Anderson's fit, he should play. James Anderson's all kinds of ace and he plays for Lancashire as well, so Mahmood can't play the trump card that did away with Plunkett behind the scenes during the previous paragraph.

Jayawardene on Murali

No. It's not a piggy-back incident. It's a quote. We're not big on reproducing quotes really. Mostly because they're usually rubbish. This is a good one though. It's Mahela Jayawardene about Murali:

"It's wonderful to watch him from the slips - I've been doing it for the last eight years and I can read him from there. It is not easy. Most of us can read him because we have been playing him in the nets for so long. But he still gets us out with the doosra or even with the top-spinner. If he retains the enthusiasm and the hunger for cricket he might be here in five years.

"He's a genius and knows exactly the areas, and the best thing is his consistency. He always puts it in the spot where he is asking questions about the batsman. We are very fortunate that he is in our side. He always steps up to the plate to try to play for his friends.

"The way he is bowling he could probably walk into the crease and spin people out. I am honoured to play with him in the side. You won't get a nicer guy than him for ever. He is a genius. We should enjoy him while we can."

We particularly like the use of the word 'friends' rather than 'team mates'. It's also bizarre to hear someone talking in such reverential tones about what is effectively a colleague. We haven't got anything like that to say about our workmates. What's the opposite of reverential?

This quote was reproduced from David Hopps article in the Guardian.

Murali v Warne

We're starting to think that maybe Murali is better than Warne. We haven't decided yet, but we'll explain why we're thinking this.

Murali took 8-70 to win the third Test. Just look at those figures. What's even more remarkable is that they aren't even his best Test figures in England. You probably haven't quite taken in what a great performance that was because you were expecting it. If Chaminda Vaas, for example, had taken 8-70 it would be the performance of his life and Chaminda Vaas is a great bowler. For Murali it's just another day at the office. Have a look at the scorecard. That is the very definition of a batting collapse. It was all the work of one man. One genius.

Shane Warne's achievements receive more attention because of the context: Because if it's against England, it's inevitably in the Ashes and also because he's such a one-man media frenzy in his own right. Conversely, if Murali puts in as good a performance it's lower profile. Just stop for a second and think about how amazing Murali is. Give him a chance to catch up on all the attention - if only a fraction. Do it. Okay. Are you feeling amazed? Then we'll continue.

Murali averages less than Warne with the ball. Warne averages 25.25 and Murali 22.10. Statistics never tell the whole story of course, but some (mainly English and Australian) commentators on the game seem to be slightly too keen to explain away this disparity. Sri Lanka's attack hinges on Murali and home groundsmen give him the wickets he wants, they say. There's no competition for wickets amongst Sri Lanka's bowlers, they say.

Well we think it's easier for Warne. How often has Shane Warne had to bowl when there've been two batsmen well-set? A few times, but not as many as most bowlers. When you've got the likes of Glenn McGrath supporting you, you're more likely to be bowling at a new batsman. For Murali, if he's bowling at a new batsman, it's because he got the last one out. As for the argument that Murali gets the bowling surface that he wants: That may be, but you can bet he didn't request May/June wickets in England and it didn't seem to bother him. The fact is that you can produce whatever wicket you like, Murali will get batsmen out - Warne too, to be fair.

Never let it be said that Murali's a one-man team. That's complete garbage. Sri Lanka have a whole host of talented batsmen and some much underrated bowlers. However, he is far more influential than any of his teammates. Put him in any team in the world and they'd construct their tactics around him. Responsibility comes with that. Responsibility and pressure. Time and again Murali delivers. To perform well consistently is an achievement in itself. To perform exceptionally so consistently is unprecedented.

Has anyone won more Test matches than Murali? We don't mean being part of a winning team. We mean playing a defining role in a victory. Has anyone in the history of cricket won more Tests for their team than Murali?

Sincere yet mild apologies

Sorry for the infrequent posting over the last few days - well, the non-posting really. We've been moving house. We did mention it. You should have put it in your diaries.

It's gone okay, since you asked, except there's been this mental person hovering around the whole time trying to demolish things with a dessert spoon. When attempting half-arsed DIY you should at least make the concession of using the correct tools. We told the mental person this, but we're not sure she was listening. She's on her own in the house now. We're a little nervous as to what we'll get home to.

The main upside of our move is that we now have enough outdoor space that you can all come round for a game of cricket (independently - there's more than a team's worth of you these days). You have to start your run-up in the kitchen and the wicket's a sticky dog, but we could have a good game.

Rob Key 98 not out

The Rob Key gloom has lifted. We’re very happy. We could be happier – we could be two runs happier – but this is still pretty darn good.

It’s more like relief. The happiness you feel when a bad thing has gone away and can be banished to memory. In this case it’s Rob Key’s run of low scores. It reminds us of waking up after a dream about dead birds pouring through the windows to discover that it was just that – a dream. Actually, there was a lingering discomfort after that dream that’s never quite faded. Never underestimate our fear of dead birds. It’s the beaks. We’re shivering now after describing them and we didn’t even go into any detail. We just used the word ‘beaks’ which is hardly a graphic description.

We literally can’t write any more because we’re so unsettled now.

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Happy Sri Lankans

The Sri Lankans must be happy. 47 runs ahead with nine wickets in hand is the best position they’ve been in all series. While England largely dominated the first two Tests, Sri Lanka’s two second innings performances were better than England’s lame run-chase in their only second innings. So as it’s now essentially a second innings match, Sri Lanka look favourites.

These Sri Lankans seem a cheery lot anyway – just about every single one of them. Maybe it’s playing alongside the exceptionally likeable and good-natured Muttiah Muralitharan. It’d make us happy. Even Benevolent Uncle Sanath who’s had a borderline humiliating tour seems to bear no malice. At any rate, with the prospect of Murali on a last day pitch, they must all be positively giddy now.

Jon Lewis replaces Sajid Mahmood

Well we like Sajid Mahmood and are fairly ambivalent about Jon Lewis, so this isn't the best news. Jon Lewis does deserve a cap though. Probably just one. The problem is, if Lewis outbowls everyone else, where does that leave the selectors? It leaves them struggling to drop an ageing player who they don't have confidence in outside the UK.

In the shorter term, Lewis is playing for England and is therefore one of our favourite people. We're not exactly going to be watering down our beer with tears tonight if he takes five wickets. Why would we be crying if we had a beer anyway? Still, you get the idea, don't you?

Ian Botham's opinions

Ian Botham's method of punditry is to take diametrically opposing views at different points in time. Then you wait to see which one comes true. Then you say: "I've been banging on about this for ages now".

Yeah and you've been banging on about the exact opposite view as well, you legendary cricketer/moronic commentator.

Maybe we'll start banging on about Ian Botham continually 'banging on' about stuff all the time. Stop banging. You're deafening us with your bombastic attention-seeking. You're not the best cricketer in the world any more. You haven't been for a long time. It's over. Go away. Go on. Get out of it. Sling yer 'ook. You've nothing to offer cricket viewers throughout the world.

Mahendra Dhoni is abroad

We're not saying that Mahendra Dhoni is a broad. He's had his hair cut now anyway. No. Mahendra Dhoni is abroad and more pertinently, he will be playing his first Test match outside India or Pakistan today in the first Test against the West Indies. We're intrigued to see how he fares.

Here's our spectacularly daring prediction: Mahendra Dhoni will do all right; not as well as he has done in India, but all right.

As usual we're a little bit out on a limb there, risking our reputation, putting it all on the line with an outlandish prediction. Maybe we could adopt the Ian Botham method of punditry.

Muralitharan bowling - staggering on telly; a million times worse if you're batting

We're no stranger to outright humiliation and like most perennial losers, we're not a fan. But if there's one way we would like to be humiliated, it would be by batting against Muralitharan. We'd have to magnify the 'can't be out off the first ball' rule a hundredfold, but it would be quite some experience.

One man who has actually experienced Murali chucking a ball at him is Steve James. Not only that, but he's described it in vivid detail here at the Guardian. It sounds even worse than we imagined.

If it's possible we appreciate the genial genius even more now.

Update: Here's another, less descriptive, account of facing Murali by Matthew Hoggard in the Times. Thanks to Matt (not Hoggard) who drew our attention to this. He notes that Hoggard seems to be overly preoccupied with Murali using the size of his eyes as a weapon. Fiendish.

Rob Key fails again...maybe he's saving his best...

R W T Key, bowled L M Daggett, 12.

Who in the name of all that is good and pure is L M Daggett? He's not exactly G D McGrath, is he? Before this match, Lee Daggett had taken 17 first-class wickets at 47.47 and now he's bowled Rob Key.

What's worse than a disaster? A catastrophe? Worse than that. Words can't describe it. How many daggers through the heart are we going to have to endure this season as Rob Key falls before he's 'in'? Rob Key has probably fallen below Iain 'not even his mum's favourite cricketer' Sutcliffe in the England pecking order. He's probably fallen below Lee Daggett in fact.

Lamentable. Someone cheer us up before we're forced to start feigning interest in football.

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