Forget the Hundred, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year pulverised South Africa’s bowlers in Cape TownBen Stokes missed the start of this tour to make sure he could pick up the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award in person after a stellar 2019. Six days into 2020 the all-rounder looks like he is in the mood to hang on to that crown for another year.Following a record-equalling five catches in South Africa’s first innings, Stokes pulverised the home bowlers during a remarkable 75-minute cameo in which 72 runs flowed from his bat in only 47 balls. Those who remark that this form of the game is boring or that it needs to be altered should have been at...
Key decision is big let off for South Africa against England and highlights why technology must be used to call out front-foot no-ballsThe current argument in football is that VAR is sucking the life out of the sport because checks for offside after every goal ruin the moment of spontaneous joy. In cricket, despite technology having been a feature of the international game for more than a decade, there is a similar problem. That is because the lack of automated checks for front‑foot no-balls until something of significance occurs means bowlers are only being scrutinised for overstepping after they have taken a wicket.This was the case shortly after lunch on the second day of this second Test when England’s Stuart...
England need Root at his very best with the bat if they are to have any hope of progressing as a Test team. At the moment they are going backwardsYou had to commend Joe Root’s honesty when he walked after gloving behind a short ball from Anrich Nortje on the opening day of this second Test against South Africa. Yet perhaps the time is nearing for him to be equally honest about his own position as England’s Test captain.To be frank, it just isn’t working out. This latest innings from Root, a largely fluent 35 from 49 balls, offered more evidence as to why he should not be in the job. Related: Ollie Pope delivers solitary shaft of light for...
The ECB has given a cautious welcome to proposals to shorten the length of Tests but surfaces need to be responsiveThe Test in Cape Town, where the first three days are already sold out, may well last five days. The traditionalists had better treasure the occasion since the England and Wales Cricket Board has given a cautious welcome to the idea that from 2023 World Test Championship matches should be of four days duration.“We believe it could provide a sustainable solution to the complex scheduling needs and player workloads we face as a global sport,” said an ECB spokesperson, who may well have spent too long watching Sir Humphrey on Yes Minister in years gone by. “We’re definite proponents of...
Coming 14 years after Flintoff in 2005, Stokes’s coronation felt like a vindication of something. But what, exactly?No sooner had the polls closed than the recriminations could begin. Horror and dismay at Katarina Johnson‑Thompson HQ. Rumours that Dina Asher-Smith would announce her resignation as early as Monday morning. Sources in the Lewis Hamilton campaign briefing that their candidate’s tax policy had gone down disastrously on the doorstep. Back in the studio, meanwhile, white-haired psephologists feverishly picked over the historic implications of the vote, and in particular the crumbling of Alun Wyn Jones’s “red wall”.Well, maybe not. And yet, as the ticker tape tumbled in Aberdeen, as Ben Stokes clutched the Sports Personality of the Year trophy in his meaty hands,...