No English cricketer has got so rich so fast but the all-rounder’s figures do not add up to a career as successful as it should beA few months ago a study was published warning against the use of hand dryers in public lavatories because of the high density of airborne human waste particles. Turning on a hand dryer hugely accelerates the rate at which these circulate the room. So, to take a topical example, when Madonna lingers sensually over the jet from a hot-air dryer in the iconic video to the No 1 hit Get Into The Groove she is basically bombarding her own face with particles of human excrement, blowing accumulated toxic faecal matter directly into her eyes, nose,...
ECB directors have browbeaten and bamboozled counties into giving away their power – time for a Campaign for Real CricketHere is the squad representing English cricket at the Lord’s Test on Thursday. It may not be the one you expected. Delia Bushell, Martin Darlow, Alan Dickinson, Colin Graves, Tom Harrison, Barry O’Brien, Kamlesh Patel, Lucy Pearson, Scott Smith, Jane Stichbury, Brenda Trenowden, Jim Wood.If you think that’s not so much a Who’s Who of English cricket but a Who? Who? you would not be alone. Don’t worry: they are not taking the field. But they are, quite astonishingly, the 12 most important people in the national summer game – and now the only 12 with any power worth mentioning: the...
Squaring the Pakistan series would be a huge relief to the ECB but it may have to be done without Ben StokesThe Headingley Test has become a spicier match than was ever anticipated at the start of the summer. England were so dire at Lord’s, so emphatically beaten by the side ranked No 7 in the world, that the calls for upheaval will reach a deafening level if England lose again in Leeds.Suddenly jobs are at stake. Another defeat and there will be more demands for heads to roll. The usual reaction and the one that is familiar whenever a football side are losing is simple: sack the coach. In any case, in this instance, it is Trevor Bayliss’s turn....
It might seem odd that English sport’s great invisible superstar is back in the Test team on the back of his Indian Premier League status but his selection is bold and sensibleEvery year in the US five people die and 10 million dollars of damage is caused as a result of deep-frying a turkey. This appears to be a festive tradition among bearded flag-draped men with hunting knives and baggy shorts, men for whom freedom’s just another word for caramelising your own arteries and shouting a lot on YouTube.But freedom comes at a cost. Each deep-fried turkey takes seven gallons of superheated fat. A special chain is required to lower it into its hell-cauldron. Moisture is the key issue: a...
The ECB chairman seems determined to push on with his plans for The Hundred despite the outcry the prospect of the new format has caused across the gameThere is no fiercer battle than the one to be the least appealing individual in British sporting governance. It is a field in which we are absolutely world class. From the FA to the RFU to the ECB to the Jockey Club and far beyond, we really bring home the bacon. All the cured pork, in fact. Of all the games we invented, this is the last one we can always be sure of winning.And yet, even by the high standards of his peers, the England and Wales Cricket Board chairman, Colin Graves, is...