Author: Bill Ricquier

  • England's familiar failings, laid bare again

    24 December 2021
    “…Anderson and Broad declined to pitch the ball up.” This is from Lawrence Booth’s match report of the second Test…
  • A captain's fall, and what it says about us

    5 December 2021
    With English cricket still reeling from the shame and embarrassment of the Azeem Rafiq saga, and with actual cricket not…
  • A dark day the English game cannot ignore

    18 November 2021
    In all of English cricket’s long history, there have been few more chilling, more harrowing, days than  16 November 2021.…
  • A preview upended by late departures

    5 November 2021
    Had this preview been written earlier, it would have been very different. The sudden and unexpected announcement that the England…
  • Neither the strongest squad, nor the weakest

    20 October 2021
    “It is not the strongest squad England have taken to Australia – nor is it the weakest.” This was Mike…
  • When cancelled tours betray the game itself

    1 October 2021
    It is impossible for a genuine cricket follower to feel anything other than sadness and dismay at the sudden cancellation…
  • Mercurial, maddening - the roles have reversed

    31 August 2021
    In the bad old days overseas teams especially from the so-called new Commonwealth – not Australia, South Africa and New…
  • Against expectation, The Hundred may just work

    28 July 2021
    It looks as though The Hundred might actually work. I haven’t actually watched any of it myself, for the various…
  • Is cricket really as dull as they say?

    11 July 2021
    Is cricket too boring? It may seem a strange question to ask but it isn’t really. Writing this on the…
  • New Zealand's quiet, deserved ascent to the summit

    26 June 2021
    There cannot be many genuine cricket followers, even in the subcontinent, who weren’t, if only subconsciously , happy at the…