Recent visits have been mired in controversy but Virat Kohli’s team will play five Tests and hopes are high for a return of the sporting values that once characterised the tourThe Maharaja of Porbandar was a better captain than batsman, a fact that, it has to be said, had very little to do with his leadership. The Maharaja was India’s leader on their very first Test tour of England, back in 1932.When it was over, the joke was that he’d bought more Rolls-Royces than he scored runs. Which was unfair, since the scorebooks show that he made a combined total of eight in the matches he played, and even the most generous estimates are that he only had seven Rolls...
As England prepare to play their milestone Test against India six writers recall their most memorable of the previous 999England won by two wickets Related: The Joy of Six: England v India memories Related: 2005 and all that: an alternative history of the greatest Ashes Objectively, he was not much fun. But we were giving the Aussies what-for in return and that was good enough for meThe barbecue on the eve of the rest day at the Botham residence was as near to a wake as is possible for that event Related: The Joy of Six: Ashes memories Their batsmen looked like they’d seen the devil. It was only Devon, but on that day it was hard to tell the...
Rashid’s decision to play red-ball cricket for England but not his county has caused a stink and now we should be informed exactly what is behind this standoffAdil Rashid’s selection by England for the first Test with India has caused one hell of a stink. But until he and Yorkshire go public on the true reasons why he currently does not want to play four-day cricket for the club, so much of the criticism flying around will be ill-informed.Because let’s be honest, it’s pretty clear that this is not a case of Rashid simply not wanting to play red-ball cricket, given he’s accepted the call-up. It seems from the outside that he doesn’t want to play red-ball cricket for Yorkshire....
The longer form of the game is in so many ways more demanding than white-ball cricket – distant personal experience reminds me of thatPhil Edmonds, independent thinker, entrepreneur, Cambridge graduate and the most gifted of left-arm spinners, once declared that he would like to circumvent county cricket. Of course he would like to play Test matches for England and he proposed that he would prepare for that by bowling, not for Middlesex, but in club cricket in London. It was a neat idea but even the arch-manipulator Edmonds could not persuade the men that matter this plan was feasible.Now it is possible Adil Rashid, a less manipulative soul one imagines, may be able to achieve the Edmonds dream. In the...
Eoin Morgan’s captaincy is central to the huge progress, so much so that Ben Stokes needs to be fit and bowling well to get a place backIt was only a few weeks ago that English cricket was reckoned to be in crisis; the team was losing to Pakistan in Test cricket and to Scotland in a 50-over game while the sages in the offices of the England and Wales Cricket Board were concocting a camel of a competition, obviously designed by a committee, which attracted ridicule from just about everyone in the game not employed by it.Now, in the week when our football team have won a World Cup match, cricket has stolen the headlines after England smashed 481 for...