CategoryTalking Points

Australian cricket is in the midst of one of its greatest ever peaks. With a team that includes their greatest ever since the Don, a record-breaking bowling attack and a host of world-class supporting acts, they seem as well set as any to compete in India. So will this series be a classic that goes down to the wire? I make the case that Australian cricket should prepare for their sternest challenge yet. India is without question the hardest place to win Test matches in the world. The home sides...

After the retirement of Bob Willis, English cricket was criticised for not producing enough genuinely quick bowlers. The standard criticism was that the heavy county workload meant that potential fast bowlers had to cut down on their pace and develop into fast-medium seamers to prolong their career. As England fans, we spent too long watching our seamers struggling in the Ashes while the Australians compiled vast totals. The standard complaint was that we lacked any genuine pace. And the same...

Today we welcome new writer Jack Surtees to TFT. He has some interesting insights that should pique the interest of fellow cricket aficionados with a penchant for data. Peter Moores would absolutely love this… Largest Run Contributions in Men’s Tests 2022 Cricket in 2022 was quite the ride. It featured two World Cup finals, an expansion of the IPL, rather a lot of international captaincy drama, the retirement of some legends and the passing of some others, a collection of incredible...

Here are TFT’s annual awards courtesy of Billy Crawford. Happy New Year to all… Hero of the year – Ben Stokes Has anyone in the history of cricket ever had such a transformative effect on the game as Benjamin Stokes has wrought in the last 12 months? If so, it is hard to think of one. In June, the Durham man, along with coach Brendan McCullum, took on an England team which had won 1 of its last 17 Tests and was beginning to make the shambles of the 1999s look like the glory years of...

Today Sam Tomkinson argues that bowlers should be able change the arm they ultimately deliver the ball with during their run up. Do you agree? The process of evolution is prevalent in life, and not just sport. Stand still and you are left behind. In technology, you lose the market and become obsolete. In the Serengeti, you are lunch. In sport you start to lose, and lose badly. As India found out in the T20 World Cup Semi Final, old methods become outdated and cricket moves on. Though the...

The purity of Test cricket and the five day game was once sacrosanct and untouchable. Domestic cricket had been reaping the benefits of the one day game since the early 60s, but it took almost 10 years to infiltrate the international game. The 50-over format slipped quietly into the calendar and took its formal bow when the World Cup was first staged in 1975. T20 cricket arrived on the international scene in 2005 – two years after the domestic game had embraced the quick and easy thrill...