Memories are made down by a county ground sightscreen, not the never-ending schedule of T20 leagues around the worldPsst. This bit is between just us, please. It isn’t something I’d want to get out in public, especially not when I’m in this line of business, but I need to get it off my chest. I don’t much like the Indian Premier League. There, I said it.This, like an acceptance you will never play the Dane, is the sort of self-knowledge you acquire in middle age, but admitting it here exposes me to youthful titters on Twitter, marks me out as the sort of man who probably quite likes gardening, sighs when he settles into a chair, someone who, yes, you...
The perpetual strugglers have a mission beyond simply shaking people down and offer a reminder of what sport can beThe fourth morning at Grace Road dawns brightly and the game is moving at a frightening pace. Leicestershire, following on, are 16 without loss. The Sussex fielders are bounding and skipping across the turf in short, jerky movements. The seamer Brad Currie walks back to his mark in a droll, Charlie Chaplin-style double-step. The commentators are talking in weird electronic blips. At this point you realise the live stream is not working.Which is obviously something that could happen to anybody. Certainly it would be premature to draw any link between Leicestershire’s apparent inability to operate a simple two-camera feed and the...
The demise of the longest form of the game has long been predicted and now the schedules suggest it is becoming realityThis is not the beginning. Well, it is. Although, it never really feels like it. The County Championship eased into gear this week in a way that always seems startling, that for all its buds of life, always feels a bit like death.Here it comes now out of the half-yearly gloom, that familiar tableau of white on mulchy green, the long spring shadows, with a sense from Old Trafford to Cardiff to Chester-Le-Street of something happening just below the daily noise, of scorecards to pore over, skittish runs, gallows humour, newspaper shots of triple-sweatered shapes against clanky steel and...
Hampshire have eyes on first title in 50 years but Lancashire have recruited well and champions Surrey will be tough to beatCaptain Tom Westley (Championship and 50-over Cup) Coach: Anthony McGrath Last season: 4th Continue reading...
Australia’s best-since-Bradman wants to play a few games before the Ashes but the chance to learn may not be all one wayAt a time when cricketers bounce from one Twenty20 league to the next without much fuss – often halfway through, like cowboy builders yet to finish off the skirting boards – it’s almost reassuring that the idea of a player dropping into the County Championship for “three or four” matches can get plenty of backs up.The player in question is no cowboy, it must be said, rather one Steven Peter Devereux Smith. Yep, Australia’s best-since-Bradman, the master of a thousand idiosyncrasies, has been in talks with Sussex over a short-term deal before the World Test Championship final in June...