A six point plan to fix English cricket
Twenty years ago last month the ECB was formed. With some fanfare, the then chairman, Lord MacLaurin, announced the launch of ‘Raising the Standard’ – a master plan aimed at revitalising the game...
Category: England
Explosive start, whimpering end: the year in review
Cricket evolves. Cricket stays the same. You could probably say that for each year of the last two centuries. One of the sport’s abiding attractions is how it retains its traditional values but continues...
A run-maker as relentless as the sea at Lowestoft
It is just over ten years since Alastair Cook made his test debut. Cricket has evolved substantially in that time. Switch hits and ramp shots and doosras and carom balls have been developed, most...
WAS BEN TOO STOKED UP?
At the climax of an adrenaline-fuelled event like Sunday’s World T20 final, it may be hard to envisage the role psychology might play. Surely it is just a matter of the bowler putting the...
Who should be England’s no3 ?
The absence of Ian Bell and Joe Root’s understandable preference to remain at no4 has created a vacancy at the crucial number three position in England’s batting order. Two prolific county players, Nick Compton...
Beefy and the Cheese
Beefy Botham is 60! Gives all of us who hero worshipped him as youngsters a reality check. I loved him. I loved his energy and enthusiasm and his never say die attitude and his...
The day Robbo outlasted Sachin
August 5th 1992 is a date indelibly inked in my memory. The scorecard above probably gives you one indication why. But it’s not the only reason. Yes, when the Little Master (only aged 19...
Jimmy Anderson: the surgeon with the killer instinct
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/sport/cricket/ Jimmy Anderson is the most successful England bowler ever because he is the fittest and the most precise. He has bowled more balls for England than anyone (more than 22,000) yet has only...
It’s a batter’s game (book extract)
Fast bowlers put six times their body weight through their knee and ankle every time they deliver the ball. It’s a shocking fact. In my case, that was a force of almost 500kg per...
Ashes afterthoughts: Moeen could get Lyth’s opening berth in the UAE
Adam Lyth would have had mixed feelings during yesterday’s celebrations. He could never have dreamt, three months ago playing for Yorkshire that on August 23rd he would be doing a lap of honour around...
