Peter Oborne

Not always cricket

Nothing can beat the early days of English cricket for exuberance and patriotism. But the brawling and fake nationalism of today’s test team is dispiriting

issue 10 November 2018

At the beginning of August this year, the England test team played what is supposed to have been the 1,000th test match since the 1877 Ashes test against Australia in Melbourne, a match which was won by Australia by 45 runs. But was it really a test match? The players in that 1877 game had no idea they were test cricketers.

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