Longest form of the game returns in England on Wednesday with the sport looking very different but with an opportunity to make some noise despite the silenceGreat news out of South Africa: 3 Team Cricket, the newest format of the game in which three teams play each other simultaneously, finally has a launch date. The inaugural 3TC event – featuring eight-man sides captained by AB de Villiers, Kagiso Rabada and Quinton de Kock – will be held at Pretoria’s SuperSport Park on 18 July.“I can’t think of a more appropriate day on which to hold this game than Nelson Mandela Day,” said Jacques Faul, chief executive of Cricket South Africa. And indeed, it’s possible this is exactly the utopian vision...
Against a backdrop of tight biosecurity and an empty stadium attention will centre on how the barnstorming all-rounder copes with being in charge against West IndiesAt last a Test match to preview. How do we go about that? It’s the clash of the great all-rounder captains, Jason Holder and Ben Stokes. Holder, ranked No 1 in the ICC all-rounder stats and about to embark on his 33rd Test as captain, is confronted by Stokes, ranked No 2 and leading England for the first time.The goal of Stokes and his team is to win back the Wisden Trophy, held by West Indies after their 2-1 victory in the Caribbean last year. Can West Indies win a series in England for the...
Fielding, bringing drinks, trips to the chip shop and having to wear a luminous bib are all part of being out of the sideThe England players are locked away in luxury and, as Ashley Giles has pointed out, it’s going to be tough for them – “no holiday camp,” he said – especially since the rest of the country now has permission for some mild gallivanting.Soon a large Test squad of around 20 players will be announced for the West Indies series, so who among them will have the toughest assignment? The obvious answer with three back-to-back Tests is the pacemen, though, as ever, we have been promised plenty of rotation, a strategy that has been talked about far more...
England and New Zealand met at Lord’s this week 83 years ago with two gifted young batsmen in their ranksThe first Test between England and New Zealand at Lord’s, which started on this week in 1937, was interesting for several reasons, none of them apparent to Neville Cardus at the time. “The engagement will be a Test match only in name,” he wrote in his preview for the Guardian. “None of us would expect Derbyshire to give England a good match; yet Derbyshire are a better team than New Zealand. The MCC should put a limit to the occasions on which a cricketer in this country is able to pick up ‘international’ colours almost for nothing.” England, he wrote, “have...
Those who went on rebel tours to South Africa were welcomed back into the fold in stark contrast to the treatment of their West Indies counterparts who took the Blood RandDoes English cricket have a problem with race? This has become an urgent question in the past week, driven not by some hard-won moment of forensic self-analysis but by comments on a podcast from the former England opener Michael Carberry.It’s also a terrible question. Here’s a better one: is there any part of English cricket’s power structures that doesn’t have a problem with race? Related: 'It’s just not OK': Jimmy Anderson calls on cricket to raise BAME representation Related: It will be a team decision if we protest over George...