It's a beautiful thing, the Strategy Conversation Summary. Be honest, I bet you didn't think they did strategy at the ECB. I bet you've witnessed the goings on in England over the last few years and concluded that the ECB were abstainers in the matter of strategy.

I imagine whenever you saw Giles Clarke on the balcony at Lord's, champagne glass in hand, chuckling away with some nobody in a suit, you thought to yourself, "They're probably joking about us peasants having to pay £100 a time to sit on a tiny plastic seat in the sun."

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Don't support your national team

It will only cause your blood pressure to rise

Andrew Hughes

25-Feb-2015

England's first two efforts at the World Cup did not go down well with English cricket journalists. Two weeks ago, these people were telling us that Morgan's chaps could surprise a few people. Well, they were right. In fact, I can honestly say I did not expect England to be that bad. I consider myself surprised.

The people who bought us these optimistic previews are now feeling indignant. England got their tactics wrong! They tried to score too quickly! They tried to score too slowly! They didn't prepare enough! They over-prepared! Eoin Morgan isn't English!

But from where does this indignation spring? Predicting that England might do well at a World Cup is to come very close to embodying Einstein's definition of madness. Ladies and gentlemen of the press, I hate to bring this up, but this is not the first time that England have flopped at a World Cup. It's not the second, third or fourth time, either.

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Dark days ahead for the World Cup

What else could the umpiring hand signal fiasco indicate?

Andrew Hughes

21-Feb-2015

Having failed to heed Wednesday's sensible advice to quit while we're ahead, the World Cup has already begun to take a turn for the worse. Dark clouds are gathering. The cricket gods have something unpleasant in mind, you can be sure, perhaps a Duckworth-Lewis miscalculation in the final, or Eoin Morgan running amok like Hercules and beating his own team-mates to death with the World Cup trophy.

You might think that this is a little unfair. Aren't we entitled to a clear warning from the cricket gods? Well no, we aren't. Immortal beings are under no obligation in this regard. Take, for instance, Law 42.12 of the Olympus regulations, which states:

a) A mortal being will contravene this Law if, in going about his business, he does or says or thinks about doing or saying anything that could possibly be considered to be insulting, disrespectful, vexing, discriminatory or platitudinous by any of the immortal gods, including the ones whose names you can never remember, their hangers-on, half-immortal offspring, Titans, nymphs, furies, harpies etcetera.

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Stop the World Cup, I want to get off

It has been a perfect tournament. Time to quit while everyone's ahead

Andrew Hughes

18-Feb-2015

It's been an entertaining five days at the World Cup, so I think that this is an ideal moment to pause, to reflect, and to decide to call the whole thing off. Let's shake hands, agree to share the trophy 14 ways and declare the tournament a success.

Why not? Everyone always says the World Cup goes on too long, like a band that has run out of ideas but keep on churning out the albums into their seventies. Most World Cups follow the career trajectory of the Rolling Stones: starting out with thrills, youth and vigour, peaking around the middle, then dragging on and on and on in an increasingly desperate attempt to excite an audience that long ago saw all it had to offer.

Most of the World Cup entertainment boxes have already been ticked. We've had India v Pakistan and Australia v England. England lost, naturally, but they didn't emerge from their thrashing empty-handed. As Moeen Ali put it on Tuesday, they got a "wake up call", which it seems is a bit like an early morning alarm call, except that it happens about six hours late. They also bagged an episode of minor umpiring injustice, about which they can whinge for the next few months.

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How maths has ruined one-day cricket

Does any normal person understand the D/L method? Why not replace it with a coin toss?

Andrew Hughes

14-Feb-2015

Last time we had a World Cup in Australia, there was a rain problem.

You might think rain is the natural enemy of the Test match. After all, a Test match is already in constant danger of grinding to a halt. A Test match is a middle-aged man with whiskers and a top hat who's just eaten a heavy meal and sat down in his favourite armchair to tell you the story of the time he met WG Grace on a paddle steamer going down the Limpopo during the Boer War. The story is gripping, his voice is mesmerising, but every time he gets to an interesting part, his eyelids droop and he begins to snore.

But Test match cricket goes perfectly with rain. Watching a Test match is like watching gardening. Sometimes when you're gardening, it rains. So what do you do? You go inside, have a cup of tea and peer at the sky every few minutes until it clears up. Even when a Test match ends on the third afternoon because the pitch is a lake and there are ducks nesting in the umpire's changing room, it's no big deal.

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Why 50-over cricket is like the banking crisis

It's a bunch of numbers and restrictions, and no one has a clue what's going on

Andrew Hughes