- Bill Frindall
- 10 Mar 08, 02:24 PM
Welcome to Ask Bearders, where Test Match Special statistician Bill "The Bearded Wonder" Frindall answers your questions on all things cricket.
Below are Bill's responses to some of your questions posed at the end of his last column and if you have a question for Bill, leave it at the end of this blog entry. Please do include your country of residence - Bill loves to hear where all his correspondents are posting from.
Bill isn't able to answer all of your questions, however. BBC Sport staff will choose a selection of them and send them to Bearders for him to answer.
Continue reading "Ask Bearders #165"
- Graeme Swann
- 10 Mar 08, 01:38 PM
Scroll down to read my answers to your questions
The media inquest has got into full flow following our first Test defeat in Hamilton, it would appear.
Of course, it was an intensely disappointing performance and result. The Kiwis bowled brilliantly first up and the cricket became very attritional – a run-rate of two an over is exceptionally slow – and, no, it didn’t make for very good viewing.
But the first three days is only the set-up for a Test match and it is at the business end, on days four and five, that things really count and with Ryan Sidebottom’s spell late on the fourth day we put ourselves firmly in with a shout of victory.
Continue reading "Don't doubt England heart"
- Adam Mountford
- 10 Mar 08, 09:01 AM
So the England team have moved on from Hamilton to Wellington after what was described in Monday's New Zealand Herald as a "dire effort" at Seddon Park.
The newspaper's cricket columnist Chris Rattue certainly enjoyed it - "It was a fabulous cricket contest in Hamilton and a brilliant result for New Zealand", he wrote.
An embarrassing Sunday for English cricket will long be celebrated in this part of the world - and English critics will be even less amused because this embarrassing loss came against a New Zealand side minus true world-class greats like Richard Hadlee or Martin Crowe"
Rattue went on: "Cricket suddenly has new heroes. It's difficult to recall a New Zealand team, especially of this order, dishing out a Test match hammering like this."
Traditionally, cricket has struggled to get the sort of attention here that the dominant sport of rugby does. But we travelled here on the same plane as the New Zealand team and it was interesting to see a far greater media presence to greet the Black Caps at Wellington airport than we have noticed so far on this tour...
Continue reading "Welcome to Welly-wood"
