I like Mike Atherton. Apparently I’m not alone. Yesterday Athers won the SJA (Sports Journalists’ Association) cricket writing award for his work at The Times. I can’t really comment on his recent work as it’s stuck behind a pay wall (how apt for English cricket), but I do know he’s a very able and I respect his views immensely. He’s welcome to write for TFT anytime – as long as he appreciates that I’d be doing him a favour and not vice versa. Ahem. The SJA also had good news for the The...
It’s a shame how the fuss and hype around the World T20 has distracted attention from the main event. Now just three days away, the cricket world unites in eager anticipation ahead of what may yet prove the definite event of this remarkable year of sporting achievement. I refer, as you will have no doubt by now guessed, to Michael Vaughan’s appearance in Strictly Come Dancing, which begins in earnest this Friday. All those, like us, who hold English cricket dear, are rightly proud...
I’m going to have to be straight with you. There are no two ways about it. In 2012, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award will not be won by a cricketer. This has hardly been a vintage summer for the public profile of our game. How different things were only a year ago, fresh from our imperious triumph over India. Newly crowned world champions – the orb still warm in Strauss’s palm – we were the pride of the nation and the envy of every other British sport. For a...
In an ideal world we’d all watch every single ball of English test cricket, live. But to stave off homelessness and starvation even the most dedicated of us are obliged to occasionally turn off the TV and turn up at work. And that means catching up with the day’s play via a highlights programme. There are two options, and one is Sky Sports, who provide a daily two-hour evening package, hosted from the studio by Charles Colville. On the plus side, Colville’s a decent cove,and...
It was late in the evening of December 25th, 2010, and as Christmas Day slipped into Boxing Day, I had a problem. The Melbourne Ashes test – about as important a match as there could possibly be – was about to begin, but I was spending Yuletide at the home of my parents, who can’t afford Sky Sports. Luckily my brother had a solution, and one which was news to me: watch it on a hookey streaming website. He located one of the many such sites, clicked the mouse, and hey presto...
Cricket’s corruption scandal took a sensational new twist last night, after it was alleged that two radio pundits conspired to ‘fix’ a passage of radio commentary. Following yesterday’s guilty plea by former Essex player Mervyn Westfield to charges of match-tampering, the focus has now shifted to Test Match Special‘s Jonathan Agnew and Geoffrey Boycott. Investigators have turned their attention to what’s described as a “suspicious” passage of...
