Cricket

Under a dark sapphire sky, tearing across grass as green as a lick of new paint, Mitchell Starc raced in to launch the first ball of the latest Australia vs India Test series last Friday. The murmur from the crowd of more than 30,000 at Perth’s Optus Stadium grew louder with every stride the tall, lean quickie took as he neared his point of delivery… is there anything more exciting than Test cricket at its best? In countries that still take the five-day game seriously, big crowds stillfill big arenas Most sporting contests start slowly – the cautious boxers circling each other, the centre forward tapping the ball backwards from

Your starter for ten: who was the last English manager to win the top flight of English football? Treat yourself to a half-time pie and a mug of Bovril if you said Howard Wilkinson, who took the First Division championship with Leeds United in 1992, the final season before the formation of the Premier League. Since then nothing: now the top four teams in the country are managed by a Spaniard (Guardiola at Man City), a Dutchman (Arne Slot at Liverpool) and two more Spaniards (Mikel Arteta and Unai Emery at Arsenal and Villa). The only three English managers in the top flight are Eddie Howe at Newcastle (currently 12th),

There may still be some poor benighted souls who regard the Springboks as the bane of rugby union. If you meet one, get ready to dispense a proper mauling. South Africa, for so long the Millwall of rugby, are playing an all-round game that is so breathtakingly attractive you have to love them. It may be hard for you, but tough. It would take a brave man to bet against them for the 2027 World Cup in Australia The scrum has always been irresistible, of course; relays of vast men who can shred opponents to bits: here’s hooker Malcolm Marx, accumulator of tries and the size of a terraced house

In the exhilarating event of Somerset managing to sneak past Surrey and being on their way to claim their first county cricket championship since the Norman Conquest – or since Vic Marks was playing – they would owe one of their captains from long ago, an eccentric gentleman by the name of Jack Meyer, a big debt of gratitude. Without Meyer it is unlikely that Somerset would have snared Archie Vaughan, the 18-year-old son of Michael and the hero of Somerset’s nerve-racking win over Surrey, the defending champions, last week. The list of Millfield’s exceptional players, past and present, is eye- watering  Meyer, a firm believer in the power of

Readers concerned that the seemingly imperious march of Bazball across the cricket firmament has blotted out the more, er, traditional virtues of the game need fret no more. Matches in the ninth division of the Derbyshire League don’t normally make headlines from Australia to Qatar but a needle relegation tussle between Mickleover Third XI and Darley Abbey’s Fourth team was no ordinary game. Mickleover piled up a chunky 271-4 declared in a mere 35 overs, thanks largely to a teenager called Max Thompson who belted 186 from 128 balls, with a feast of fours and sixes. If you have to call up J.K. Rowling’s bespectacled wizard, you really are in

Spinning a line Sir: Roger Alton is too enthusiastic about the Hundred tournament (Sport, 24 August) – I can’t recall another sport that has so successfully alienated its entire support base. Before the season ends, I encourage Roger to watch his local cricket team and ask for their thoughts about the Hundred. He will find that most are terribly unhappy. While it has attracted a few big names in the men’s, we have no Indian powerhouses and few Australian heavyweights; other franchises round the world are, simply put, outcompeting us. Overseas investment will inevitably increase the number of teams and widen the window of play into most of July, similar

Time to come clean: I really like the Hundred. This is the sort of view that normally makes people look at you as if you had just professed an admiration for Gary Glitter. But come on, this is a crisp little short-form cricket tournament, played out at the height of summer to largely packed houses. What really is not to like? Cricket is one of the few sports that works in different formats, so it beats me why the Hundred arouses such venom. It has done wonders for the women’s game, it doesn’t take long and it is all televised – much of it on terrestrial TV. Crucially, it has

It’s freezing cold and everywhere is flooded, so it must be the start of the county cricket season. Surrey, last year’s champions, head for Old Trafford on Friday, in what should be a three-sweater day, aiming to make it three titles in a row. And who would bet against them? It’s a superb tournament, the county championship, much more than just an opportunity for elderly gentlemen to spread their wings with a sandwich lunch. But it could certainly do with some reforms. This goes against a lot of current thinking, but why not revert to three-day matches with a points system heavily weighted against draws? This would provide considerably more

It’s not easy for most right–thinking people to care much about golf and golfers apart from gasping in wonder at the size of their bank balances. Right now the Saudi–backed LIV tour and the American and European tours are making occasional grunts of peace towards each other. Soon the various professional golf bodies will have so much money they will be able to club together and buy Saudi Arabia. But what you can be certain of is that no one has ever watched a LIV event of their own free will or is ever likely to, despite the presence of some of the world’s best players, like Jon Rahm, Bryson

After the failure of Bazball – ending in England’s dismal capitulation on the cricket fields of India – let us give thanks for the emergence of Borthball in front of the Twickenham faithful. And it certainly was much needed: Steve Borthwick’s England rugby team had apparently been trying to convince us that they really weren’t very good at the game before donning Superman cloaks last Saturday to give a classic fooled-you performance against Ireland’s dogged champions. Playing fearlessly with speed, adventure and aggression, this young(ish) England side produced one of the greatest games of the century. Playing with speed and aggression, this England side produced one of the greatest games

You couldn’t miss the heartbreaking irony of one of the greatest rugby players who ever pulled on his boots passing away just as the latest tournament was getting under way featuring 18-stone behemoths smashing into each other. Barry John, who retired at 27 and died last Sunday at 79, could have walked through brick walls and emerged unscathed. Was he the finest fly-half ever? He was certainly the most beautiful to watch. He played just 25 games for Wales and a handful for the British and Irish Lions, including the 1971 tour of New Zealand when he helped them to their only series victory against the All Blacks. It was

Could this be the year when England’s men win their first international football trophy for 58 years? After all, they have the best striker in Europe in Harry Kane and the best attacking midfielder in Jude Bellingham, both of whom are being treated like Wellington and Nelson at their respective clubs BayernMunich and Real Madrid. This should be about time too that pundits admit that the way Bellingham lit up the European Championships in Germany makes him, at the very least, Bobby Charlton’s equal. If he is not Sports Personality of the Year in 2024, something very odd must have happened in the space-time continuum. If Bellingham is not Sports

And they said Test cricket was in its death throes! This epic, attention-grabbing, emotion-wringing Ashes series ended in the last minutes of the last hour of the last session of the last day of the last match: who could ask for more? England have had a number of very good captains since Mike Brearley took voluntary redundancy from the job (for the second time) in 1981, but Ben Stokes has really measured up to his illustrious predecessor over the past six weeks of mesmerising sport. They are cut from very different cloth: Stokes is more intuitive than Brearley, who was perhaps more cerebrally attuned to the needs of leadership. Broad

In this summer of sporting dramas, every patriotic sports fan likes to think he’s done his bit to help. I went up to Manchester with my brother last Thursday and in the evening we found ourselves in an Indian restaurant with the England wicket-keeper Jonny Bairstow at the next table. I feel sure it was Edward’s and my manly cries of ‘Good luck, Jonny’ as he left that helped him bat so brilliantly for his 99 not out. Though I suppose it could have been the vindaloo that fired him up. My major influence on the Ashes series came a few days earlier, when I bumped into the Australian all-time-great batsman

The current Ashes series is proving a once-in-a-generation classic, one of those contests that cricket fans spend decades dreaming about. How are some of those fans reacting? They’re refusing to watch. I’m talking about the ‘I just can’t stand the tension’ brigade. The ones who, when the run chase gets down to 30 with three wickets left, run from the room shouting: ‘It’s no good, my nerves won’t take it.’ They pace up and down, fingers in ears, determined to avoid learning the result until the match is over. Only then do they creep back in and discover the news. It’s madness. You wait years for the drama of a