Author: Bill Ricquier

  • Great, or merely very good? A batsman weighed

    2 January 2021
    Cricket people love debating whether a particular player is great or simply very good. “Great” tends to be over-used but…
  • A fitting, fragile end to a strange year

    27 December 2020
    There could hardly have been a more appropriate way of bringing the weird and often wonderful international cricket calendar year…
  • The cunning spinner cricket almost forgot

    3 November 2020
    I made (at least) two misstatements in my piece on John Reid. The first was that New Zealand’s Tests against…
  • John Reid, New Zealand's indomitable all-rounder

    18 October 2020
    John Reid, the former New Zealand captain, who died last week at the age of 92, was one of the…
  • An honour few would begrudge Darren Gough

    12 October 2020
    Whatever one’s views on Britain’s honours system, nobody is going to begrudge the award of an MBE to the former…
  • A sudden loss, and a fearless batsman recalled

    28 September 2020
    The cricket world was shocked to learn of the sudden death of the former Australian batsman Dean Jones at the…
  • Ian Bell bows out, loyal to the last

    17 September 2020
    The former England batsman Ian Bell has announced his retirement from first-class cricket at the end of this slightly unreal…
  • An unsponsored Test with much still at stake

    13 August 2020
    What should we make of the first (unsponsored) Test between England and Pakistan at Old Trafford? Of course the first…
  • A fixture forever unpredictable and fraught

    8 August 2020
     The relationship between England and Pakistan as cricketing nations has always been “interesting”.  Things started to go wrong almost as…
  • Sam Curran, and the selector's stranger arts

    30 July 2020
    Is Sam Curran in your best England Test eleven? Well all right, twelve? Er, thirteen? Selection is a strange business…