Who are we going to boo at now? Ricky Ponting, the pantomime villain uber alles, has finally hung up his gloves and retired from international cricket. After years of decline, no longer will he rage against the dying of the light. It’s hard to remember a time before he was part of our cricketing lives. For Ashes series after Ashes series, there he was – snarling, and chewing gum, as he grew from baby faced larrikin to the gnarled and wizened old pro of today. It’s poignant on...
All the best, Greiggy
As you may have read in the news over the last few days, Tony Greig has been diagnosed with a form of lung cancer. He’s due to undergo surgery this week to determine the extent of his condition. I’m sure you’ll join us in wishing him all the very best. I’ve always had a generously-sized soft spot for Greiggy, who it’s easy to forget – despite his accent, and residence in Australia – was once the captain of the English cricket team. As a cricketer, Greig...
Our favourite cricketers
We always love to hear from anyone interested in contributing to this blog – whether to air a view, share a story, tell us something new, or just take a little trip down memory lane. So we were delighted to hear from TFT reader John Pascoe, who’s put pen to paper for the latest (if rather irregular) instalment in this site’s very occasional series about our favourite cricketers. Here he pays tribute to a Middlesex legend of yesteryear. My favourite cricketer: Vintcent van der...
The emperor’s new clothes?
We all love Straussy, but was he as good as some would have us believe? They say a history degree is useless. They’re half right. Although I spent more time drinking than learning vocational skills at university, I did learn one valuable lesson: to get to the truth (if there is any such thing as objective truth) one must look at both sides of the story. That’s why all the tributes to Andrew Strauss over the last few days have puzzled me somewhat. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Strauss as a...
Congratulations South Africa – day four at the Oval
England 385, 102-4. South Africa 637,000-2 dec Well done South Africa for an unbelievable weekend of sport. If somebody had told Nelson Mandela on Thursday morning that Ernie Els would win The Open, and that the Proteas would humiliate England at the Oval (with Hashim Amla scoring a triple hundred) he probably would have laughed. But that’s exactly what’s happened – and it’s thoroughly deserved too. As Englishmen, we’ve usually booed South African sportsmen over the years. Guys like Corne...
Douglas Jardine: the amateur with a professional’s zeal
One of the few positives of this rain-ravaged ‘summer’ is that it’s supplied additional opportunities to read. After trawling through The Full Toss archives several times and despairing of the near weekly jibes aimed in the direction of England great Sir Ian Botham, I turned – sacrilegiously – to other work. And I stumbled across an aspect of cricket history which I’d never really thought about before – but viewed down the years, struck me as fascinating. Douglas...
