Shortly after the new year, Wisden released their rankings for top five Test innings of 2022. There were five spots but only three names – perhaps a surprise, unless you’d witnessed Jonny Bairstow’s extraordinary summer firsthand. Risabh Pant and Abdullah Shafique were the others to join the Yorkshireman in what I reckon was a pretty just adjudication. There are, of course, players who might feel somewhat aggrieved at being ignored (Travis Head, Usman Khawaja, Babar Azam...
New Zealand’s Tom Latham is a very good Test cricketer. Making his debut in 2014, the left-hander has been an ever-present feature of the Kiwis top order for almost ten years. In a decade dominated by seam bowling, Tom’s textbook technique and patient approach have served him well, averaging a sturdy 41.91 in his 70 tests – not remarkable, but notably impressive considering the roll call of openers that England have deployed in the same period. Imagine, if you would, that an English bat...
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...
