Rugby

It was the year of KP, Keano and the Kiwis; of Federer, Froch and Phil the Power (no change there then); of Sochi and Suarez; of Rory and Ronaldo; McCaw, McGinley and McCoy (as always). But it was also the year when we learned some very valuable things about sport. 1. For all the boasting about how good the Premier League is, there’s actually only one team in it — which is less than in Italy, Spain or France, or even poor old Scotland. The only country where anything similar is happening is Germany, where Bayern are running away with the Bundesliga, just like Chelsea here. Which only goes to

Some years ago, when the last Conservative government was limping towards defeat, someone published a book called 101 Uses for a John Major. It was cruel and fairly funny, the premise being that since he couldn’t run his party, there must be some other way he could be employed. Perhaps an Indian publisher is considering a new version after the country wilted in the Test series this summer: 101 Uses for a Duncan Fletcher. What does the India coach actually do? He called his memoirs Behind the Shades, a vain and self-regarding title, but quite what has been going on behind those shades this summer has been a bit of

A revealing handwritten letter emerged at the weekend from the England scrum half Danny Care, who wasn’t playing in the first Test against New Zealand, to his Harlequins and England colleague Joe Marler, who very much was. And how! ‘Joe, Just wanted to wish you all the best when you step on the battlefield tonight,’ wrote Care. ‘Go hard my friend, I wish I could be out there in the trenches alongside you.’ Say what you like about the military metaphor — and I think it’s bang-on for a match against the All Blacks — that note says as much about Stuart Lancaster’s England as a whole forest of commentary.

There are many eternal questions. Why do all aircraft, no matter how much your ticket cost, where you’ve come from, and what time you land, always dock at a gate requiring a walk of not less than 47 miles to the terminal? Why was there no running water in the taps on my train to Cheltenham on Friday? And why, beyond being an idiot, did I back Lord Windermere in the Gold Cup, but only for a place, thus depriving myself of several hundred quid? I suppose being an idiot does it. Now add another question, but whisper it: could England actually win the 2015 Rugby World Cup? They just

James Cook’s third voyage as an English captain ended in disaster, stabbed to death and disembowelled by a pack of angry Hawaiians in 1779. The latest Captain Cook’s third tour since taking charge of the national cricket team has been just as successful, with Alastair’s England given the Hawaiian treatment by Australia. But don’t despair: for the British sports fan there are plenty of reasons to be cheerful. Try these: 1. Our women cricketers are thumping the Aussies, and it’s the women’s Ashes that matters, right? Just remind any passing Australian of that, and last summer’s Lions tour too, if you’ve got the time. Thanks to seven wickets from Anya

Sir Vivian Richards came to watch me play cricket the other day. That’s the sort of sentence you wait a lifetime to write. What’s more it’s true. Sort of. I haven’t been able to say anything like that for ten years, just  a few days before the Rugby World Cup final in Sydney in November 2003. I was at a screening at the National Film Theatre of a nautical epic called Master and Commander, starring Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany. Afterwards there was a Q and A with the actors. After a series of standard questions about the cinematography and suchlike, I put my hand up. ‘A question for  Mr

My friend Miles was bowling in a festival of wandering cricket clubs in Oxford the other day. First wicket down and in walked an immaculately turned out Japanese gentleman. As he took guard, he turned to the slips and said, ‘I’m the best batsman in Japan.’ Miles’s first ball he edged to the keeper, and tucking his bat under his arm he said to the slips again, ‘But I’m also the only batsman in Japan.’ Ah, cricket, lovely cricket. It’s a long way from the Ashes and Jonathan Trott collapsing from unspecified stress issues or Michael Clarke snarling at England’s No. 11 batsman, Jimmy Anderson for heaven’s sake, to ‘get

In sport, as in life, you just don’t know where you stand any more. Look at the Premier League: no club knows where they stand except for Crystal Palace, who are being stood on by all the others. Everyone else can beat everyone else. Manchester City, who must be one of the best teams, are eighth; Southampton are good for the Europa League but currently could end up in the Champions League. But it’s all good for business. The England football team are about to find out exactly where they stand after two friendlies and the World Cup draw next month. The England rugby team are about to find out

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