By Michael Rudling It is the best passage of Ashes cricket in decades. The unmovable, unshakable Steve Smith ducks and weaves and whacks rocket after rocket from quick young debutant Jofra Archer. Archer cracks one into Smith’s arm; Smith smashes one through the covers. It is team sport reduced to a simple, one-on-one cage fight […]
Cricket
The Long Game, Sport’s Fallen Prodigies: Cricket
In this first instalment of The Long Game, Michael Rudling looks at three cricket ‘prodigies’ whose outstanding natural ability and potential left fans expecting more.
West Indies Shrug Off Average Tag In Second Test
With the conclusion of the second Test Match of three in the Caribbean between the West Indies and England, many questions have been raised over the quality of this England side. Especially when that same squad came into the series off the back of an away whitewash, 3-0, in Sri Lanka and a flattering but […]
Report: Jason’s 202* Holds England to the sword to give West Indies 1-0 lead
West Indies 289 (Hetmyer 81*, Anderson 5-46) and 415 for 6 dec (Holder 202*, Dowrich 116*) beat England 77 (Roach 5-17) and 246 (Burns 84, Chase 8-60) by 381 runs Selection blunder leaves toothless England to hard yards in the field. Local boys: Jason Holder, Kemar Roach, Shane Dowrich and Roston Chase shine as the West Indies subjected […]
The Ashes: England left to rue missed opportunity in first test
So all as expected. Australia cruise to an easy ten-wicket victory over England at the Gabba. But it could have been different. For three days this Test match was a tight and tense affair with neither side able to land the decisive blow; England failed to press home their advantages when in the ascendency, though. […]
Ashes Preview 2017/18: Can England really win Down Under?
With the England squad having landed in Australia and preparations underway, the build-up to this winter’s Ashes series can well and truly begin. With the warm-up games already underway, some random 14-year-old Australian will rip through England’s batting order to destroy any optimism before the series has even begun. In fact, if any optimism did […]
Suffocating attention risks deterring a new generation of sports stars
B ritish athletes decorate the back pages on a daily basis and sometimes even the front – Wayne Rooney’s exploits have often been splashed across the leading page. Thus, a responsibility exists to fulfil the “role model” status surely exists. Here, Ben Hart shines a light on this particular debate through the medium of Eden […]
Rooting for Joe
When Alastair Cook announced he was stepping down from the England captaincy after a painful winter in India, it seemed only a matter of time before his vice-captain Joe Root would be appointed as his successor. Brief mentions were given to Stuart Broad and Ben Stokes, but inevitably England’s best batsmen was revealed as the […]
Myths not Legends: Geoffrey Boycott
Supreme talent and a selfless attitude rarely go hand in hand and there is no greater example of this than Geoffrey Boycott, a man described by Ian Botham as ‘totally, almost insanely, selfish.’ Botham’s words bring to mind the old adage that you can judge a man by the number of enemies he has. From […]
Myths not Legends: Wrong Said Fred
Despite writing two thousand years before the birth of test cricket, Aristotle captured the nature of a legendary cricketer when he observed ‘we are we repeatedly do … excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.’ Those who have earned the right to be called cricketing legends will have been consistent match winners and […]