It is likely India 2023 will be a wonderful tournament, but it will also be a six-week campaign rally before April’s electionThe ICC World Cup opening ceremony takes place just under a month from now at the Narendra Modi Stadium, the day before the opening game at the Narendra Modi Stadium, prelude to a tournament where it turns out almost all the most urgent events, India v Pakistan at the Narendra Modi Stadium, England v Australia at the Narendra Modi Stadium, the Narendra Modi Stadium World Cup final, will take place at the Narendra Modi Stadium.It is a spectacular Narendra Modi Stadium too, the second largest sports arena in the world after the Rungrado 1st of May Stadium, North Korea,...
The SA20 franchise tournament is taking precedence over the Test team and a rich red-ball history is now in danger So this is how it ends. Not only with a whimper and the impotent shrugging of shoulders, but under thick globules of sponsored maximums, reflective uniforms and suffocating excess. Like geese with bloated livers we’ve had a thing we love stuffed down our throats so that there’s no room for nourishment. If this is indeed how South African Test cricket dies then let’s be quick about it.Cricket’s landscape would be unrecognisable without South Africans. Not only have the Proteas provided some of the greatest exponents of the craft, but exports and expats have shaped the destinies of other nations as...
As the light fades on my journey – from Lauren Filer on another plane to Stuart Broad’s Oval exit – joy at an epic series lingersYou know you’re getting on a bit when you gesture towards how things used to be. It doesn’t have to become that special mix of nostalgia and resentment that can distil in later life, just a measure of distance. You’re farther along the line, looking back at youth as something that happened rather than living within it as the only state you’ve known.My first Ashes tour was in 2013, and it was shoestring deluxe, from random couch-surfing hosts to the floors of backpacker friends, stashing free sandwiches at tea breaks and scanning the pub for...
Alex Carey and Todd Murphy revived the chance of another miracle until probability finally caught up with the touristsOnce more with feeling. Of course, it had to come down to this. Another dramatic session, another bright streak of energy fizzing end to end through an afternoon. Another hour of insides squirming and crawling into knots, a prickle in fingertips and a jiggle in knees. Australia and England, the fifth afternoon of the fifth Test, runs ticking down as wickets crashed, another of those finishes, the possible and the impossible blurring in and out of focus.After the half-formed belting at Manchester, a fourth-Test disaster for Australia averted by rain, some supporters piled in. Others were ready if a loss followed at...
For all his ups and downs across the series, the captain has given his teammates fresh bravery and beliefThey say it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. It took Ben Stokes so many more than that to get here, to the fifth day at the Oval, England captain, 2-1 down in the Ashes, 50 or so overs left to go, Steve Smith in, and his team still needing seven wickets to level the series.All those matches he has played, for schools, clubs, county and country, through the age groups in Christchurch and Wellington and Cockermouth, for Cumbria, for Northern Schools, for Durham’s academy, their firsts and seconds, for England’s Under-18s, Under-19s and Lions, T20, Test, and ODI...