It’s a state of affairs you would scarcely have imagined a generation or two ago. England’s rugby team are in disgrace. England’s football team are in the doldrums. But England’s cricketers – flawless and heroic – are world champions. If you grew up, like I did, in the 1980s, you naturally assumed that our cricket side would forever be little more than a joke. The England XI were a byword for incompetence and under-achievement – a metaphor for national...
The end of the season
October has begun, and the cricket season is over. Even the hardiest village cricketer will now have pulled stumps and hung up their whites. That’s our lot now, until April. The death of summer, and the demise of the season, go hand in hand, each a symbol of the other. As the leaves turn golden and fall, and the air turns crisp, you return the kit bag to the loft as a melancholy metaphor for the relentless onwards march of time, for nature’s inexorable cycle of renewal and decay...
Why does it always rain on us?
Three out of seven test matches every year are staged in London. Is it fair that the capital gets such a large slice of the action? To those who argue it’s not, you only have to look at the attendances to find a riposte. Whereas the likes of Cardiff or Old Trafford struggle to put bums on seats, Lord’s is almost always full, whoever’s playing. And for this Oval test match, not only are the first four days completely sold out, but 15,000 tickets for the final day have already...
We are the champions
England are the number one si… Ahem. We are the best team in the…..start again. We are the world champ.. No. It’s no good. I just can’t get to grips with the reality of our new status after so many years of humiliation and misadventure. You’d have to be nearly fifty to remember the last time England had a good claim to be the best test side in the world – around 1971. And you’d need to go back to the mid-1950s for undisputed pre-eminence. For...
Day one at the Rose Bowl
Stumps: Sri Lanka 81-4 Do we really need as many as nine test match grounds? That’s the question several pundits have raised, in their scepticism over the Rose Bowl’s elevation to test status. They’re mainly the same commentators who were horrified by the news that Lord’s will only host one test next year. But it’s the wrong question. Instead, they should be asking – why don’t all England fans, wherever in the country they live, deserve the chance to...
A covert day at HQ
Lord’s: the home of cricket, where it all began, Long Room, air of magic, Old Father Time…etc, etc. I could go on but have far too many other clichés to fill this piece with. Despite the supposed magic of the place, my view – before last week – was of a stuffy, usually wet and gloomy cricket ground. My only two previous visits had witnessed a lot of rain, an alleged incident of match-fixing, an eight over defeat to the convicts, and a drunken lunch that later nearly led to...
