England have the spoils, to New Zealand goes the glory, and the nation has a chance to fall back in love with cricket againIt is a phrase that is usually painfully glib or laden with irony but for once it may be appropriate: perhaps cricket really was the winner. The audience beyond, thankfully enlarged, as well as those crammed into every nook and cranny of Lord’s, watched a melodrama that left everyone gasping. Spectators eventually filed out of the old ground stunned by what they had just witnessed, enthralled and exhausted.The last hour at Lord’s was complicated, yet there seemed to be women and children present who found it utterly captivating. The result may not have been just but that...
The Black Caps were once the inspiration, now they are the last obstacle standing between a daring England and the World CupAs it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end. Four years on from the start of English cricket’s great white‑ball paradigm shift, Eoin Morgan’s band of buccaneers return to Lord’s on Sunday for the World Cup final. In the process they find themselves facing the most poignant of opposition.Through that period of revamp and clearing out it is New Zealand who have been a significant constant for this new model England. First as an inspiration, then as a yardstick of progress and now as the final obstacle in the path of this brilliantly planned and...
The international tournament has more flash, but the county scene continues to charm and entrance its devoteesRoll up, roll up, here comes the Cricket World Cup, if only for one more day. In her high heels and tail-feathers, she jiggles past smiling, waving, bowing this way and that. She sings, plays air guitar, and speaks in CAPITAL letters at all times. She swallows sixes, dot balls, yorkers and spits them out into video clips. She dines out on youthful impetuosity and career-ending mistakes, while fading players chasing former glories are given short shrift. And for 45 days she has consumed our attention, eaten us up, spat us out. She’s magnificent. Look at her go!On Sunday morning she hits terrestrial TV,...
Following failure in 1975, England assumed the cricket world would be small enough to conquer eventually. They’re still waiting but now have their best chance yetJune 1975. On Monday the 2nd it snowed: a full inch at Buxton, wreaking havoc with Derbyshire v Lancashire; flurries outside my bedroom in Northamptonshire; the odd flake at Lord’s.By the Thursday the weather had perked up and the people of Britain felt cheery enough to vote Yes to staying in the Common Market. On the Saturday cricket’s first World Cup began. The June sun shone, the crowds poured in and the nation was transfixed until West Indies beat Australia in a gloriously theatrical final at Lord’s a fortnight later. No one knew the old...
For England to have a fast bowler that menacing is unusual, for them to have a wrist spinner that deadly is almost unprecedented as Australia found to their cost in the semi-finalSome strange daydream, this, a child’s idea of what an England win might look like, or a revenge fantasy perhaps, cooked up by despondent English fans in their lowest moments. By the middle of the afternoon, the thousands at Edgbaston seemed almost drunk with happiness watching it come true in front of them.From the top of the pavilion, where their victory songs echoed around the rafters, you could see the heavy weather circling Birmingham. The Met Office had put out a weather warning and, judging by the smudges away...