Moeen The Muggins

By Shane Thomas

As England suffered an expected series defeat to Pakistan, one of the many subplots to come from the postmortem was the injudicious selection of Moeen Ali to open the batting alongside Alastair Cook, despite having never played in such a specialist position before. It was a disastrous choice, as Moeen only scored 84 runs in the series, with his batting travails possibly affecting his bowling.

England Need To Leave Their Complacency At Home

By Shane Thomas

In early 2012, the England men's cricket team was in a pretty good place. They soundly beat Australia a year previous to retain the Ashes, and then followed that up by thumping India 4-0 to become the world's best ranked Test side. They had assumed the mantle of the sport's playground bullies, and travelled to the United Arab Emirates to continue in this vein.

An England Defeat In Which We Can All Rejoice

By Shane Thomas


The England cricket team; the sport's dominant force. The playground bullies. Best in the world. Don't believe me, look at the rankings.

So on this England team went to the sub-continent to play Pakistan. They came, they saw, and they got a pasting. It was a rude awakening, as Pakistan taught England a lesson that they shouldn't really have needed teaching. England were whitewashed in the series, 3-0, and have been humbled as a result.

But it's not England's defeat that should bring joy to cricket fans, but Pakistan's victory.

India & Pakistan - Cricket's Powderkeg

By Shane Thomas

Now that the farce of the group stages of the Cricket World Cup are now done, the tournament is now worth bothering with. And in Mohali next Wednesday morning, we may see the most compelling game of cricket of 2011.