6 minute readAnd so the greatest Test batter of all time has departed the game just four ducks short of Courtney Walsh’s all-time record with 39. To put that in context, the next highest tally by someone with a Test hundred to their name is Marvan Atapattu’s 22 – and that was
Continue reading
4 minute readRajasthan Royals owner Manoj Badale has told the BBC that, “We are going to have to think creatively about Test cricket if we want it to work.” This was shortly after he’d said the quiet bit out loud. It’s easy to characterise IPL franchise owners as ravenous financial speculators with
Continue reading
6 minute readEvery player wants to go out on a high, but few actually do. Most topple forwards and face-plant when attempting to bow out in style. And that’s what life’s about. You do your best for a bit and then the ending’s probably going to be a little bit of a
Continue reading
10 minute readWith his thin hair and love of whole milk, you could easily mistake Ben Stokes for a baby. But Ben Stokes is not a baby. Ben Stokes is a full grown adult man who plays cricket for a living. He plays it very well with a particular penchant for seeing
Continue reading
4 minute read“It could be really entertaining, like that 2005 series, which is what made me fall in love with cricket. The prospect of that is really exciting.” – Ollie Pope, February 2023. Bless him, he’s excited. He’s also completely wrong. The fundamental mistake that Ollie Pope has made here is a
Continue reading
6 minute readThere aren’t many things in cricket more entertaining than a duck. A batter slowly walks out to try and make some runs and then slowly walks back again having failed to do so. It’s a miniature tragedy. Great ducks come in many different flavours. There’s the duck you were expecting
Continue reading
6 minute readOur annual Lord Megachief of Gold award is the highest honour in cricket. The title is recognition of performance over the previous calendar year. Here are all the winners. Up until now we’ve always recognised players for their batting or their bowling or both. This year, something else has swayed
Continue reading
4 minute readLast week Rehan Ahmed became England’s youngest debutant and soon after the youngest men’s Test debutant to take a five-wicket haul. But just how young is he really? Age is famously just a number (in this case 18), so maybe we can get a clearer perspective on his youth by
Continue reading
7 minute readIs Test cricket dying because it’s unsuited to modern life? Or is it being allowed to die because it’s harder to monetise? Doom-mongering administrators often talk like the world’s moved on from Test cricket. They say no-one’s interested any more and nothing can be done to save the format. They
Continue reading
7 minute readDon Bradman famously averaged 99.94 in Test cricket – but did you know he had a hot streak? Between his second and penultimate Tests, The Don averaged 104.13. We’re being facetious, but you get our point: there are many ebbs and flows in a Test career and sometimes when we
Continue reading