Cricket

Thursday

Roger Alton

There’s no feud like an old feud, especially in sport

Many years ago, when I used to work for the Guardian, Germaine Greer, who was then a columnist for the paper, wrote a vicious little piece for the op-ed pages slagging off Suzanne Moore, who was also a columnist. Even in the shell-shocked state that goes with the territory of trying to handle egos like that, I realised this could be a problem, so I rang up Ms Greer to wonder whether she felt like toning it down a tad, dropping the reference to ‘fuck-me shoes’ and suchlike. She snorted with laughter: ‘Stay out of this, dear; this is a mud fight.’ Happy days, and a nice fore-runner of the

Thursday

David Blackburn

Amateur fantasies and professional realities

As was to be expected, it rained. Drizzle was in the air at times yesterday when the Authors XI turned out to mark 150 years of The Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack (the latest edition of which the Spectator reviewed here). Sebastian Faulks, Ed Smith and Kamila Shamsie were among the players, all of whom were dressed in Victorian garb and wore joyous grins. The Author’s XI has a book out; an account of their tour recent of England. It is a gently beguiling book, revealing something of life, the writers and, of course, cricket. It’s a perfect match. As Sebastian Faulks puts it in the foreword: ‘Amateur cricketers tend to be vain,

Steerpike

Steerpike: Murdoch ruined Dave’s holiday

  So did Dave enjoy his brief break in Ibiza? Not if Rupert Murdoch could help it. Rupe declared on Twitter that the Woolwich atrocity would be a personal test of Cameron’s leadership. ‘Could save him or finish him if he mishandles.’ Three days later the Aussie ref flourished a yellow card. ‘With UK on terror alert, Cameron on holiday. Unbelievable.’ The following morning, by an extraordinary coincidence, the Sun splashed on a picture of a tanned and smirking Cameron next to the headline. ‘Crisis? I’m off to Ibiza.’ Rupert’s quest for revenge goes on.   Poor old Dimbers has lost the plot. First, as a BBC hack, David Dimbleby is required

Wednesday

Alex Massie

The Sweet Sorrow of following Somerset Cricket

Marcus Trescothick. Nick Compton. Alviro Petersen. James Hildreth. Craig Kieswetter. Jos Buttler. When all troops are fit and available Somerset enjoy a batting line-up one might compare favourably to this summer’s visiting New Zealanders. Today they were dismissed by Sussex for 76. At Horsham. Granted, Compton and Kieswetter were absent but, even so, this was a dismal showing.  Somerset, damn it, won the toss and chose (rightly!) to bat. At the time of typing Sussex are 241/7. The best that may be said of it is that this year the Wurzels are not teasing their supporters. A season that began with hopes that – at last! – the Cider Men

Thursday

Roger Alton

On the retirement of Sir Alex Ferguson, and on cricket’s new boy wonder, Joe Root

The tear-flecked coverage and forests of newsprint devoted to the departure of Sir Alex Ferguson have made the resignation of Pope Benedict and the appointment of his successor look as big a deal as trying to find an ink monitor. And rightly so: Suralex is not just one of the most significant figures in world football, but in also in all of British public life. Besides his jaw-dropping success, he was just about the only top-flight manager to really bring on young English players. We’ll see what David Moyes does: so far he’s brought on several Scottish players, which doesn’t seem to have gone that well for Scotland’s woeful national

Thursday

Roger Alton

Spectator sport: Here’s hoping Sachin Tendulkar has an Indian summer after 40

Sachin Tendulkar did not have the happiest of 40th birthdays last week. The man who has been worshipped as a god in India for most of his career lasted only six balls, playing for Mumbai in the Indian Premier League, before being clean bowled by a young West Indian off-spinner who was only a year old when Tendulkar made his international debut. His dismissal silenced the huge crowd who had turned out for him in Calcutta, disappointed the TV executives who know that Tendulkar at the wicket means higher ratings, and left him plenty of time to eat some of the 40lb chocolate birthday cake presented to him before the

Friday

David Blackburn

Cricket is more than a game

Does this advert ring a bell? It showed a handsome young man hitting a cricket ball far into the distance. It appeared on the Tube last spring. The tagline read: ‘How far can you hit it, Rory?’ The advert said that the young man was Rory Hamilton-Brown, captain of Surrey County Cricket Club. It urged commuters to watch his team play. It suggested glamour and clamour; neither of which is associated with stolid county cricket. Something was afoot. Hamilton-Brown had been appointed three years earlier, aged 22, to rejuvenate Surrey, a once great club wandering in the wilderness. He was the youngest captain in the country, and one of the

Saturday

Alex Massie

Mike Denness and an All-Time Scottish Cricket XI

Mike Denness, who died yesterday, could credibly claim to be the finest Scots-reared cricketer of the past 50 years. That is not, at least not quite, as small a claim as you may think. Cricket in Scotland is a game of perseverance played on the edge of possibility. Even the most devoted flanneled-fool sometimes wonders if all the shivering and frustration is really worth it. In a nation scarcely over-freighted with sunshine of either the figurative or literal variety, cricketers cannot avoid being optimists. The climate and, it must be said, the culture is against them. Few things vex the Scottish cricketer more than the accusation that there is something

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Wisden finally merits the epithet ‘Cricket Bible’

The man who christened Wisden ‘The Cricket Bible’ had little religion. Wisden is an unprepossessing sight: a 1,500 page tome surrounded by a flame-yellow dust jacket covered in mud brown lettering. The book’s content often matches its artless appearance; thousands of statistics and scorecards that read like the turgid genealogical passages of Genesis. Abraham begat Isaac; Jack Hobbs scored 61,760 runs. A record of the chosen people is important; but it does not inspire belief. The record tells you nothing of how Abraham raised Isaac; neither do Hobbs’ stats tell you how he scored his runs. Bald facts contain little mystery, and what do those know of God who know

Saturday

Alex Massie

Wisden, 150 Not Out

Summer, or rather the hint or promise of it, only arrives with the publication of Wisden. The cricketers’ almanack – the venerable almanack – celebrates its 150th anniversary this season. It has been quite an innings. John Wisden (pictured above) created an institution that, happily, shows no sign of flagging. This year’s almanack clocks in at a chunky 1584 pages and is a fine edition that pays proper tribute to the Yellow Brick’s past. This second edition stewarded by Lawrence Booth confirms the impression fostered last season that his editorship is a considerable upgrade upon his predecessor’s. His prejudices are sound. Quite correctly, Booth is a conservative but not a

Thursday

Steerpike

A birthday challenge to the New Statesman

Slight treachery from Boris, who has written a glowing piece on the occasion of the New Statesman’s centenary. While most people will focus on his dissection of the evils of left-wingery and explanations for hatred of Margaret Thatcher, something else caught Steerpike’s eye: ‘My paranoia about the New Statesman and its terrific pieces went on for some months, until we finally met for physical combat, in the form of a cricket match. It was a torrid afternoon and I was full of nerves. Bernard Levin had come to watch, for heaven’s sake, and the New Statesman’s captain, Christian Wolmar, displayed what I am forced to call gamesmanship. At last we prevailed,

Thursday

Roger Alton

Blonde ambition

Seems a little weird to be rabbiting about sport at a time when a malign confederacy of sanctimonious do-gooders, vengeful politicians, hypocritical celebrities and hatchet-faced lefties has brought about the biggest threat to press freedom since Uncle Adolf started on his European adventures. But at least we have this fine journal which has refused to sign up to any new system of state licensing of the press. How long before a newspaper has the guts to follow the Spec’s lead? As more than one commentator has pointed out, try to imagine reading the following sentence in the New York Times: ‘The Senate and House of Representatives last night agreed on

Monday

Alex Massie

Can't Bat, Can't Bowl, Can't Field: Is this the worst Australian cricket team ever?

Stuart Law. Darren Lehmann. Jamie Cox. Phil Jaques. Brad Hodge. Michael di Venuto. Chris Rogers. Martin Love. Tom Moody. Nine men who count as some of the unluckiest cricketers ever produced by Australia. Each of them scored more than 50 first-class centuries; none of them won more than a handful of test caps. They had the misfortune to be the contemporaries of the Waugh brothers, Ricky Ponting, Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Damien Martyn, Mike Hussey and so on. Such was Australia’s strength in depth in what Gideon Haigh neatly termed the Green and Golden Age that none of these nine ever commanded a regular place in the test team. All

Thursday

Alex Massie

80 years ago, Bodyline ended and English cricket enjoyed a triumph

Today, February 28th 2013, is the 80th anniversary of the conclusion to one of the finest – and certainly the most controversial – test series ever played. Eighty years ago today, Wally Hammond and Bob Wyatt put on 125 for the third wicket as England strolled to an eight wicket win at Sydney. This capped a remarkable winter for the tourists and sealed a crushing 4-1 series victory. It remains one of English cricket’s greatest foreign triumphs. Rarely before and rarely since has pure theory been so completely matched to the needs of applied cricket. No wonder Douglas Robert Jardine is still remembered as arguably the finest captain to ever

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Cricket’s the loser

Cricket glorifies some cheats. W.G. Grace often batted on after being clean bowled; such was the public demand to watch him. Douglas Jardine’s bodyline tactics revolutionised fast bowling: eventually making it acceptable to target the batsman rather than the wicket. Fielders “work” the ball. Batsmen stand their ground when convention asks them to walk. Cheating is part of cricket. But match fixing? The culprits live forever in infamy, and deservedly so. The cricketing authorities (the ICC) believed that match fixing had died ten years ago; but the News of the World’s sting on the Pakistan team in 2010 demolished those hopes. The sting suggested that the problem was deep. Rumours

Saturday

Alex Massie

Frank Keating, 1937-2013 - Spectator Blogs

A while back a friend remarked that a piece I’d written – on cricket probably though, perhaps, darts – was “worthy of Frank Keating”. I can’t say if the compliment was earned but it was appreciated mightily. To be compared to Keating, on however dubious a basis, was the kind of pleasantness guaranteed to put a smile on your face. That sounds vainglorious but it’s a really a measure of how good Frank Keating was. Keating, who has died aged 75, was one of this country’s great sportswriters. For many years he was the Spectator’s sports columnist and his weekly epistle, though the last thing in the magazine, was always

Saturday

David Blackburn

The more Shane Warne practised, the more magical he got

It was a placid start. A tubby kid with peroxide blond hair approached the crease in 6 easy steps. He skipped into the air and pulled his arms backwards to build forward momentum. His left leg hit the ground and he began to rotate his shoulders from right to left. This motion brought his right arm up through the air in a wide arc. He had to hold his left arm out in front of him for balance as the shoulder-turn accelerated. His hips began to follow in the direction of his shoulders, bringing his right flank around to the left. His right arm extended above his head and neared the

Wednesday

David Blackburn

Thank you, Christopher Martin-Jenkins

The children who grew up when Christopher Martin-Jenkins began to commentate on cricket (both in print and on the air) have got old. CMJ’s 40-odd year career has been brought to a premature end by cancer; and the cricket writing world has paid tribute to its companion. The pieces by Mike Selvey, Jonathan Agnew and Michael Atherton are very touching, and very, very funny. CMJ’s innate unpunctuality and disorganisation conspired to make episodes of glorious farce. He arrived at Lords to commentate on a Test Match that was being played at the Oval. He stopped a car journey to make an urgent phone call, only to discover that he had mistaken

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Ricky Ponting's Recessional - Spectator Blogs

With the Don at three and Keith Miller inked for the all-rounder’s role at six there are only two open spots in Australia’s all-time middle order. It is a measure of Ricky Ponting’s greatness that no-one doubts he’s a sensible, worthy contender for one of those places. You may prefer the claims of Clem Hill, Charlie McCartney, Stan McCabe, Neil Harvey or Greg Chappell, but Punter is undoubtedly part of the conversation and only a fool would scoff at including him in this Fantasy XI. That’s how good he was. In England I fancy there’s sometimes a tendency to forget how fine a batsman Ponting was and instead place a

Friday

Shiraz Maher

Afghanistan's triumph: the return of cricket and other 'frivolities'

England have just beaten Afghanistan in the Twenty20 Cricket World Cup currently being held in Sri Lanka. In the end, it was a comprehensive victory for Stuart Broad’s men but how wonderful it is to see cultural and sporting life returning to a country where such ‘frivolities’ were outlawed by the Taliban. This is Afghanistan’s second appearance at a major cricketing tournament and follows Rohullah Nikpai’s efforts in the Olympics a few weeks ago where he won the country’s second ever medal.