Cricket

Well he’s done it. At last. Surprisingly, this was Sachin Tendulkar’s first ODI century against Bangladesh. One hundred international hundreds – 51 in test cricket and 49 in the abbreviated game – is an achievement so astonishing it becomes mesmerising the more time you spend contemplating it. Better still, however, is the fact that it is impossible to imagine how anyone who loves cricket can fail to be pleased today. Tendulkar is a rare creature: a master without enemies or begrudgers. Everyone likes him; everyone feels a little protective of the Little Master. And so we should for we will not see anyone match this mark in many a year.

I wrote about the great man here, but cricket-minded readers should also scamper to Cricinfo to read Ed Smith’s reflection on his former Kent team-mate. This is the telling passage: What a brilliant inversion of the usual myth told by professional sportsmen: that they had unexceptional talent and made it to the top only because they worked harder. Dravid spoke the truth. Yes, he worked hard. But the hard work was driven by the desire to give full expression to a God-given talent. Emphasis added. Smith could have gone further: this isn’t just the “inversion of the usual myth told by professional sportsmen”, it is, more importantly, unusually modest and

Rahul Dravid’s retirement, announced with typical elegance today, is not just a sad business because it means we’ll never see the great technician again but because it is the beginning of the end of India’s greatest generation. I think it is possible to argue that Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and VVS Laxman have been the finest batting trio since Worrell, Weekes and Walcott bestrode the West Indian stage in the 1950s. There have been other great batsman, of course, but few trios whose achievements are quite so inextricably linked or whose careers have overlapped quite so completely. Add, at various times, Saurav Ganguly and Virender Sehwag to the mix and you

It would take a heart of stone not to laugh when reading about Australia’s latest cricket crisis and, reader, I’ve no heart of stone. Much more of this and we’ll have to wonder if the Aussies really deserve a five test series these days. The present crew are, apparently, “The Lowest of the Low”. To which one can only say: not while anyone who played for England in the fiasco of 1988 is alive they ain’t. But this is the thing about Test cricket: its habit of sneaking up and whacking your senses when you least expect it. This was a humdrum, low-key Test in tiny, sleepy Hobart (of which

Watching Roger Federer destory Rafael Nadal the other day and knowing how many people can recognise their brilliance while always holding a vehement, even visceral, preference for one of these superb athletes I wondered if there was a correlation with another bitterly divisive sporting divide. I mean, of course, David Gower vs Graham Gooch. That is, how many people love Nadal and Gower and how many Gooch and Federer? Precious few I suspect. How could you? Even allowing for different sports and their different demands these things have an aesthetic quality. Gooch, English cricket’s greatest monster these last 25 years, is obviously allied with Nadal; Gower with Federer. Perhaps I

Who dares say the County Championship is a useless anachronism? Rumours of its irrelevance have been much exagerrated for years and we were reminded of this again today as Lancashire took their first outright title since 1934, defeating my beloved Somerset by eight wickets and with just five overs to spare. It still, even in the evening glow of victory, seems improbable that a county with Lancashire’s cricketing resources and tradition could have gone so many decades without a championship but whenever Lancs were good someone else was just a little bit better and, of course, sometimes – or so they’ll tell you in Manchester – the rain would make

This England cricket team is rather like the great German football sides of the past: a collective rather greater than the sum of its parts. Hard, determined, efficient, ruthless, organised and together. There’s quality too, for sure, but that’s not what stands-out. They thoroughly deserve their success. Nevertheless, their success comes at a price. Or, rather, much as one relishes the novel notion that England might be the best side in the world at present, there is a gloomier picture to be considered too. India’s feebleness in this series, combined with the nature and preferences of their governing board, is bad news for the future of Test match cricket. It’s

The Old Batsman – one of my favourite cricket bloggers – had a typically lovely post yesterday noting that August 11th is the anniversary of Geoffrey Boycott’s one hundredth first class hundred. Few players will ever reach that landmark again; none will do so in a Test match. This is cricket’s loss. The Old Batsman is a few years older than me and he remembers watching Sir Geoffrey – Yorkshire folk are right – in the flesh. My memories of him are slighter: the 1981 series is the first year of Test match cricket I really remember and even then I wonder how much those memories have been corrupted by

Meanwhile, mercifully, there’s a Test match taking place in Birmingham. The contrast between this England and that other England in the headlines these past few days is total, complete and reassuring. Which brings me to this lovely piece by Peter White on how a blind man may adore – and imagine – cricket: […] I love cricket’s sounds, its scores, its slowness. I delight in its long periods of apparent apathy, suddenly punctuated by a moment of frenzied excitement (I understand that non-cricket lovers claim to be unable to distinguish between the two). I, of course, attempt to explain I’m also there for the atmosphere: the sound of bat on ball

On balance, I agree with Sir Geoffrey: Ian Bell was out and the Indians had nothing for which to feel ashamed. On the contrary, it is England whose reputations are, to my mind, (slightly) diminished by this incident. To recap: batting for England in the second test against India yesterday Ian Bell believed his partner Eoin Morgan had either hit a boundary or that, the players having run three, the umpires had declared the Over finished and announced it was time for tea. At this point Bell was sauntering down the pitch, miles out of his ground, and unaware that a) the ball had not reached the boundary rope, b)