The IPL’s £5.2bn deal shows where the game is headed but less international cricket might actually make it feel more specialSo what did you do during the great English Cricket Culture Wars? Did you set up a burner Twitter account and start spamming George Dobell? Did you start a furious argument about state schools and free-to-air television with a man who lists his interests as “Wife – Manchester Originals – UFC – but not necessarily in that order!!!!”? Did you share a video of Alice Capsey just doing Alice Capsey things?Alternatively it is entirely possible that you have no idea what any of the last paragraph was about, in which case you enjoy not simply my admiration but my deepest...
Off-the-wall reference book has become as much a fixture of the new English cricketing year as bad light stopping playLate March’s balmy sunshine turned to sleet and snow last week, a sure sign that the English county cricket season is about to start. Another is the thunk of The Cricketers’ Who’s Who hitting the doormat. The annual tome of player profiles, stats and anecdotes pored over by fans and players alike is now on its 43rd edition.The book provides a “unique insight” into the minds of those who will grace the grounds up and down the country for the next six months, from St Lawrence to Sedbergh, Edgbaston to Aigburth. Continue reading...
Lancashire and Warwickshire look most likely to fight for the title, with Jimmy Anderson’s availability potentially decisive, while Hampshire benefit from a bolstered batting lineup Continue reading...
Introduction of a 10-team first division and an eight-team second tier is the start of a blueprint to improve English cricketCounty cricket is no stranger to rumours of its imminent reorganisation. There lives in every top honcho a desire to tinker with the settings, like a 1970s teenager idly flicking from dreary western to Songs of Praise on a Sunday afternoon.Sometimes these changes are genuinely huge – the switch to two divisions in 2000, the expansion from nine counties to 14 in 1895, the admission of Durham in 1992, the switch to four-day cricket in 1993; sometimes less so, like the move to 10 teams in the first division, eight in the second, which comes into place on Thursday with...
Last year’s runners-up are in bullish mood as they embark on a historic joint pre-season tour with their women’s teamThe lowest temperature recorded in the UK on Monday was -7.8C, at the village of Braemar in the Cairngorms. Much of Britain has had a sun-kissed few days, however, and in the Cornish town of Bude the temperature at one stage hit 17.7C – nevertheless at Taunton and the Ageas Bowl cricketers still pulled on their long-sleeve cable knits as they headed out for the first domestic friendlies of 2022. A new season is upon us, the start of the County Championship just a fortnight away.They may be defending champions but Warwickshire approach the new campaign third in the bookies’ estimations,...