AuthorBilly Crawford

Blink and you missed it, that was the feeling at the end of England’s three Test series against South Africa. Each match seemed to be played on fast forward. Test cricket for the T20 generation perhaps. No game lasted for a full three days, with the first match over by the middle of the third afternoon, denying the paying public a Saturday at Lord’s. The final Test would have been over inside two days – the first time this had happened in England since Andy Caddick skittled the West...

There is a phenomenon in English society known as “tall poppy syndrome”. Briefly it means to build somebody up in order to knock them down, the idea being that the tallest poppies that stand out from the others in the field are the most likely to be cut down to size.  Having spent the best part of the season signing the praises ofEngland’s new management team of Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum it would seem peculiarly English to bury them in criticism after one defeat...

There are few tours that stir the passions in quite the same way as a visit by the South Africans. For those of us of a certain vintage, over 30 perhaps, only the Ashes gets the pulses racing more than a visit from the Proteas. With the exception of a largely forgettable series in 2017, every tour by the rainbow nation since readmission has been intense, enthralling and usually quite bruising for England and its captains in particular. Mike Atherton was caught with dirt in his pocket at Lords...