Memories are made down by a county ground sightscreen, not the never-ending schedule of T20 leagues around the worldPsst. This bit is between just us, please. It isn’t something I’d want to get out in public, especially not when I’m in this line of business, but I need to get it off my chest. I don’t much like the Indian Premier League. There, I said it.This, like an acceptance you will never play the Dane, is the sort of self-knowledge you acquire in middle age, but admitting it here exposes me to youthful titters on Twitter, marks me out as the sort of man who probably quite likes gardening, sighs when he settles into a chair, someone who, yes, you...
The demise of the longest form of the game has long been predicted and now the schedules suggest it is becoming realityThis is not the beginning. Well, it is. Although, it never really feels like it. The County Championship eased into gear this week in a way that always seems startling, that for all its buds of life, always feels a bit like death.Here it comes now out of the half-yearly gloom, that familiar tableau of white on mulchy green, the long spring shadows, with a sense from Old Trafford to Cardiff to Chester-Le-Street of something happening just below the daily noise, of scorecards to pore over, skittish runs, gallows humour, newspaper shots of triple-sweatered shapes against clanky steel and...
Now starting its 16th season, the IPL has spawned many imitators but none can match the huge crowds and star cricketersFourteen years ago, I took a train from Glasgow to Greenock. Sitting all around me were preschool children on a trip to the seaside, one of whom ended up giving me chickenpox. If you’ve never had chickenpox as an adult, take it from me: you do not want to get chickenpox as an adult. For almost three weeks I was quarantined in bed, pale and sweating, barely enough energy to paw at the lurid purple buboes sprouting across my face and torso. Soon my days would congeal around the single leisure activity still open to me: watching the Indian Premier...
The hosts are out to seize on rare glimpses of Australia appearing beatable and write themselves into historyThere have not been many times since Australia won the last T20 World Cup at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2020 that the team has looked beatable. Since that memorable win in front of a record crowd, Australia has only lost three T20 internationals - two to New Zealand and one to India via a super over in late 2022. Australia have always been a dominant team, but that win seemed to set them on a course of becoming near-indestructible.There are also not many ways to beat Australia. Opposition teams must feel trapped in a horror movie at times - they manage to...
All-rounder brought back memories of 2019 with his ability to produce his very best when under the most severe pressureIt was Joe Root who probably best summed up Ben Stokes and a career that will for ever be defined by far more than just the numbers. Speaking in Phoenix from the Ashes, the documentary about the life and times of England’s champion all-rounder, Root put it simply: “The big moments find him.”One certainly found Stokes at Eden Gardens six years ago, the last time he played a world final decked out in red. That fateful deciding over he bowled to Carlos Brathwaite saw four successive sixes soar into the night sky like fireworks, West Indies were crowned T20 world champions...