• Little and Large

    Some Cricketers

    I write this on Sachin Tendulkar’s 47th birthday. He made his Test debut, against Pakistan in Karachi, a month before the…

    Tendulkar's birthday, and giants great and small
  • Who is the Fairest of Them All?

    Some Cricketers

    I remember listening to an interview with a batsman – a right-handed batsman, I just can’t remember who it was…

    On style, and the batsmen we remember
  • April is the Cruellest Month

    About the Game

    Whatever your interpretation of T S Elliot's famous line, April is a month I normally look forward to. The 2020…

    A month of hope, this year emptied of cricket
  • Time for a Break

    Some Cricket Matches

    I saw an intriguing picture the other day while leafing through a book called Cricket – The Golden Age by Duncan Steer.…

    An old photograph opens a window on the past
  • Catch Me if You Can

    About the Game

    Records are made to be broken. That is certainly true of sport. In some ways it is almost the point…

    Records are made to be broken - and cherished
  • Clash of the Titans

    Some Cricketers

    Who was the greater bowler, Muttiah Muralitharan or Shane Warne?  Such questions are almost impossible to answer. This is obviously…

    Murali or Warne? An unanswerable question
  • Going Viral

    About the Game

    On Friday 14 March 2020 COVID-19 made its first impact on international cricket, and we had our first, decidedly untantalising…

    The day the pandemic reached the crease
  • Mismatch at Mount Maunganui

    England

    Should we be surprised that New Zealand are ranked number two in the ICC’s Men’s Test rankings? Hardly. They have…

    New Zealand's quiet strength, England's shortfall
  • Joy for Paine as Root Licks His Wounds

    The Ashes

    This has been the best Ashes series for some time, probably since 2009. In 2015 England won 3-2, which makes…

    The finest Ashes in a decade, finely poised
  • Abdul Qadir

    Some Cricketers

    The great Pakistan leg-spinner Abdul Qadir died last week. This article about him first appeared in my book, The Pakistani…

    Pakistan's great leg-spinner, fondly remembered