Application for the Director of England Cricket

                                                                                                                 MS Towers
                                                                                                                 Stump Road
                                                                                                                 Hertfordshire




Mr Paul Downton
England and Wales Cricket Board
Lord's Cricket Ground
London
NW8 8QN

The Fall of the Umpire

Is it me or is the standard of umpiring around the globe falling? Dharmasena was crap in Australia while Erasmus in England made some of his decisions with a degree of hit and hope, as opposed to an arbitrator from the Cape of Good Hope. Billy Bowden thinks he is bigger than the game, so with the lack of alternatives on the circuit, is it time to turn to one per country again?

Bowden...showman or show pony?

The Art of Captaincy

Alastair Cook is getting a hard time out in Australia at present. About as decisive as your missus on a shopping trip trying on various different outfits, watching Bressie bowl the final over to James Faulkner can be about as much fun. A slow painful death, or watching Bresnan bowl at the death I am sure most of our male readership are nodding your heads right now reading this, aren't you? Cook in Australia has been pilloried for being about as much use as Anne Frank's drum kit, an ashtray on a motorbike or Manchester United's midfield, but he isn't the only poor skipper. In fact in the last thirty years there haven't been many in the England camp. Captaincy can be a fine art and here we look at how the luckiest skippers often make the best ones.

Captain Cook? Not for much longer

Coming Soon...T Shirts

Be a proper scenester at the cricket this summer and nothing will make you look cooler than a Pushing the Boundaries t shirt by The Middle Stump such as the ones below. We've imported a top of the range designer from Milan...ok, well Oxfordshire but they look pretty great. Coming in green, navy blue and red, sizes will range from James Taylor to Dwayne Leverock. Guaranteed to pull...whether it is your plonker or a member of the opposite sex, you'll look great in one of these. Coming soon....

Every Little Helps?

I am absolutely astounded to read in this morning's papers that ex Tesco, Vodafone and ECB Chief Executive Lord MacLaurin wants the number of counties cut to just a mere dozen, thus meaning more time for preparation for the England team. I have never seen or heard of such a knee jerk reaction to a poor performance in Australia and here we argue that there is a lot of very good things to come out of the County Championship. Here we look at why the pool of talent should be made bigger and not smaller...

MacLaurin

#CricketFilms

While perusing Twitter last night I came across a tweet that had been sent to everyone’s favourite cretin, Piers Morgan. It was not quite a proposition but more an idea that Piers and Kevin Pietersen could star in a new film, a remake of a classic, Broke Bat Mountain. This got us thinking of some other cricket films that could be made.

Not so Baggy Green on the other side

The following was sent to us by Middle Stump follower Brendan Lynn, aka Lord Lynn of Liversedge. Brendan is an Australian living in Yorkshire, and describes his views as coming from the various characters in his head. He sent us this with the intention of cheering up all Poms, although I think having read it and realising that this Australian team aren't that great a side, I feel even more depressed than I have been recently. I could handle losing 5-0 to a side containing Warne, McGrath etc but one containing George Bailey shows how poor we have been. Read on and Brendan tells us that the Aussies have plenty of re-building to do themselves.

Haddin...irreplaceable?

England in the Abyss

Thorpster, after many days sitting around and having his Christmas ruined, questions how low have the England cricket team sunk? Have we just had a bad series, or are the problems terminal? He looks at why it has all gone wrong for England and questions even whether central contracts are good for those on the fringes of the side? Read on for a fascinating read, with naturally a few pops from both barrels at a few people along the way.

Mr A Byss

Ones to watch in 2014

Last year we told you to look out for certain players during 2013. Of those, Tymal Mills and Ben Stokes have made great strides. Here we look at the young, up and coming names in County Cricket and who will be the ones to watch in this coming year.

Lees...even Boycs rates him!