Chris Woakes benefited from taking a break from the game and England’s winter schedule will test how far cricket has comeIt has been 15 years since England played in Pakistan, a stretch that feels, nowadays, more than half a lifetime ago. They may go back there again in January. Wasim Khan, the chief executive of the Pakistan Cricket Board, has invited them out to play three Twenty20 games in the new year. And given the efforts Pakistan made to help the England and Wales Cricket Board fulfil its own fixture list by touring here during lockdown in the summer, the ECB is bound to agree. The difficulty is England are also supposed to play two Tests against Sri Lanka around...
There is always compromise, always managed space – but banning exercise in this country would be a disasterYou can take our pubs and our shopping centres. You can wall us up behind the front door with Netflix and newsagent wine. But don’t take away our glimpse of the sky, that proscribed 30 minutes of brain-soothing, body-stretching exercise.Judging by the experiences of Spain, Italy and France, this is the next stage for the UK. Quite how long we can put off a complete ban on personal exercise is open to question. But a concerted effort is required here because, with the weather this week forecast to reach as a high as 23C, this really could be a tipping point. Related: English...
Football offers numerous examples of why mental health matters and the importance of the saying, ‘it’s OK not to be OK’Jimmy Carr used to tell a joke about being stopped in the street by one of those clipboard-wielding charity muggers who asked him if he could spare her a minute for cancer research. “All right,” replied the comedian. “But I don’t think we’ll get much done.” Over the weekend, in collaboration with Public Health England’s Every Mind Matters and the Heads Up campaign, the Football Association asked all those – fans, players, backroom staff – at football grounds to set aside the same amount of time in order to “Take A Minute” to think about or discuss looking after their...
Faizah Hashmi was being treated for anorexia but gradually her health improved, thanks in part to ‘a safe space’ at Moseley Cricket ClubOccasionally in this job, you meet someone extraordinary. And they’re not always the fastest or the strongest, their voices not always the most booming. Last Friday, 17-year-old Faizah Hashmi walked to the front of the lecture theatre at Huddersfield University for the Women in Sport North Awards, smiled, and told the room how nervous she was. She paused, took a deep breath, and spoke: “Many of you may have heard of the proverb or saying ‘the calm after the storm’. It signifies the period in one’s life or situation during which things improve after a difficult, chaotic or...
Negative environments are creating huge problems with mental wellbeing in elite sport – it is time to change thatA young academy player at a top European club who needs to shift some excess weight snaps a picture of his dinner and sends it to his fitness coach at the club. Back comes the reply: “Good work but take some of the potatoes off and add some more broccoli. You’re smashing it. Have a great evening.”At another top club there is an academy player who doesn’t think the meals at the club provide the right nutrition (he is right). He gets up early to make his own lunch, packs it up and takes it to training. The coaches routinely mock him,...