• Fever Pitch

    About the Game

    My wife, Anita, has a theory about life during the wretched pandemic, which has now been with us for roughly…

    A theory of life, and cricket, in a pandemic
  • Three of a Kind

    Some Cricketers

    Joe Root did something very special at the first Test between India and England at Chennai. He scored a century…

    Root joins a very select company at Chennai
  • Two’s Company

    Bowling

    It is a truism that cricket is all about partnerships. The record books are full of statistics about batting partnerships.…

    The bowling partnerships that win Test matches
  • Miracle on Vulture Street

    Some Cricket Matches

    Even the game’s administrators might at last begin to realise what every genuine cricket person has always known: that there…

    India's improbable triumph at the Gabba
  • Courage Under Fire: John Edrich

    Some Cricketers

    Cricket people love debating whether a particular player is great or simply very good. “Great” tends to be over-used but…

    Great, or merely very good? A batsman weighed
  • House of Cards

    Some Cricket Matches

    There could hardly have been a more appropriate way of bringing the weird and often wonderful international cricket calendar year…

    A fitting, fragile end to a strange year
  • The Sly Old Fox: Clarrie Grimmett

    Some Cricketers

    I made (at least) two misstatements in my piece on John Reid. The first was that New Zealand’s Tests against…

    The cunning spinner cricket almost forgot
  • The Strong Man

    Hail and Farewell

    John Reid, the former New Zealand captain, who died last week at the age of 92, was one of the…

    John Reid, New Zealand's indomitable all-rounder
  • A Gong for The Dazzler

    Some Cricketers

    Whatever one’s views on Britain’s honours system, nobody is going to begrudge the award of an MBE to the former…

    An honour few would begrudge Darren Gough
  • A Victorian Legend: Dean Jones, 1961-2020

    Some Cricketers

    The cricket world was shocked to learn of the sudden death of the former Australian batsman Dean Jones at the…

    A sudden loss, and a fearless batsman recalled
  • One-County Man

    Some Cricketers

    The former England batsman Ian Bell has announced his retirement from first-class cricket at the end of this slightly unreal…

    Ian Bell bows out, loyal to the last