Cricket’s cross-dressing phenomenon
Blinding weather for the 4th odi at Headingley. I travelled up on the train with the Chairman of the ECB and a man in a lizard costume (perhaps his CEO in disguise? A great...
Author: Simon Hughes
Aussies too clever with the Kookaburra
The loss of David Warner and Shane Watson give England a chance of ruining Australia’s remarkable recent one day record – P19 W18. But they will also have to deal better with Mitchell Starc’s...
Not Taming The Australians and Other Batting Mishaps (book extract)
Against the Australian tourists, I’m leaving the nagging Terry Alderman well, ducking Merv Hughes’s bouncers and ignoring his unintelligible curses when I play and miss. I drive the pace bowler Geoff Lawson (86mph) back...
How batting has become a sporting smorgasbord (extract from Who Wants to be a Batsman?)
The days when a batsman strode out before a match with just his bat and gloves and eased a few gentle half volleys into the advertising hoardings (to the chagrin of the advertisers at...
The Influence of Sangakkara senior…(book extract)
I walk down a quiet, jasmine-scented road in the early- morning sunshine and through the gates of a rambling villa, set in verdant hills, its pleasant, leafy garden spreading out on all sides with...
5th test 2nd day: England misread pitch and were mentally shot
It takes two months for the groundstaff to prepare a test pitch. It takes half a minute for the captains to read it wrong. Sitting in the dressing room after his mid afternoon dismissal...
5th Test preview: Rogers and Sangakkara – old dogs perfecting old tricks
Two 37 year olds will play their last test match this week. Two left handers playing for two different countries on opposite sides of the world bonded by one mission: to achieve their Masters...
5th Test 1st day: The Aussies finally discovered The Leave.
You can’t win a test in the first session, the saying goes, but you can certainly lose one. It is a theory that has been repetitively applied in this series. Look at the...
How to bowl the Doosra and the Carom Ball
They are as baffling to bowl as they are to face but the plain old off-spinner has been rejuvenated by these two deliveries, one rather more legal than the other. The Analyst explains the...
How to bowl at 90mph
There are several distinct ways of bowling fast. In this BBC video, two are illustrated. Mitchell Johnson’s dramatic slingshot style and Steven Finn’s alternative coil and spring method. Fast bowlers all find their...
