Cricket

Forgive the personal question, but how long does it take you to, you know, go to the gents, ladies, non-binary? Quite what Stefanos Tsitsipas was doing in there in any of his numerous toilet breaks during the epic first-round US Open encounter with Andy Murray at Flushing (geddit?) Meadows is anybody’s guess. It clearly riled Murray — never the hardest thing to do — who was playing as well as ever, and is the ironman, quite literally, of Grand Slam tennis. He has also rather wittily pointed out that Jeff Bezos can get into space and back again more quickly than Tsitsipas can go to the loo. There is something

You would need a digger to explore the levels of irony in a Springbok chief slagging off an opponent’s dirty play. But that’s what Rassie Erasmus, the South Africa director of rugby, was up to when he used Twitter to question Owen Farrell’s choices of tackle technique. Fine and dandy and all part of the pre-Test build up to get the ear of the referee after the ferociously hard Lions defeat to a South Africa ‘A’ side. Yet hasn’t Erasmus got a point? Farrell has long had a taste for the high tackle and has largely got away with it. It’s going to be trickier now, I suspect, in what

One of the more egregious innovations of Chairman Mao’s cultural revolution was something called the ‘struggle sessions’. This involved the ritual public humiliation of anybody the local bigwigs had turned against — often in sports stadiums. The elderly Yangtze swimmer would have smiled approvingly at what has happened to Ollie Robinson, the England fast bowler who was forced to read out an apology on the eve of his first Test match for some daft and obnoxious remarks he made eight years ago on Twitter. He has now been banned, and something with the sinister title of the ‘integrity unit’ is poised to investigate further. But investigate what exactly? Had Robinson

Thank heavens the Champions League final is being played in Portugal, now Turkey’s off the menu (sorry). It will certainly be a damn sight easier to get to than Wembley: have you tried to go round the North Circular these days? And at least the capital will not have to accommodate what is ominously described as ‘the Uefa family’, all 2,000 of them. Pity no one told them about family planning. And where would you prefer to go out for a post-match bite: Porto or Wembley Way? Anyway, then we will see quite how far Chelsea have got inside Manchester City’s head, with two very efficient victories in the League

So wickets are out and outs are in for the new Hundred competition. But why? The language of sport is a beautiful thing, even in the hands of a pub bore. Why is it a try in rugby, when you have to touch the ball down, and a touchdown in American football, when you don’t? I know why it’s the leg side, but why is it the ‘off’? The purpose of the Hundred is to grow cricket, and the language of cricket is part of the game. It’s not hard. It’s not Cornish, or Welsh, or Etruscan. ‘Outs’ feels like a complication too far, inventing a problem where there isn’t

After the thrills and spills and last-gasp excitements of England’s triple-headed series in India, the attention of the cricket fan moves on. But to where? To Derbyshire’s next game, say — a university match at the county ground, over what promises to be a somewhat nippy Easter weekend. Or perhaps to the Indian Premier League, where the Mumbai Indians, featuring Rohit Sharma and the Pandya brothers, from the recent Test series, kick off the latest edition of the tournament against Bangalore, perpetually under-achieving despite the presence of A.B. de Villiers, Virat Kohli, Washington Sundar and Adam Zampa. Some of the best players in world cricket will be in India, for

Michael Vaughan might disagree but — putting aside 2005 and all that — was there a more thrilling and satisfying series than India’s evisceration of the Aussies which ended at the Gabba? Especially after being rattled out for 36, their lowest ever score, in Adelaide in the first Test, when no one, not even extras, reached double figures, and then losing many of their best players to injury or absence. They’ve pulled off a skilful trick, the Indians, in making the world see them as underdogs despite them being a cricket-mad country of more than a billion people, which already runs and owns the game. Now there can’t be a

So the Good Lord really wants to fill out his team: how else to interpret the passing in recent months of three of the finest footballers of the past century — Jack Charlton, Nobby Stiles and Ray Clemence. All received thoroughly deserved eulogies. All had reached the highest realms of their sport and, though none made it to a very great age, they did at least achieve the biblical milestone of three score years and ten. All deaths have a depth to their sadness, felt most deeply by immediate family, but not all have an added melancholy that engages us in a quite different way. Graham Cowdrey’s passing in seemingly

‘At least there’s sport,’ said the woman in the supermarket queue. True enough, and in a welcome sop to an embattled world elite sport has largely been saved from the wreckage of second lockdowns around the globe, leaving a great deal to look forward to and argue about. 1. The much-delayed US Masters — will Bryson DeChambeau, the American built like a brick outhouse, pummel Augusta National into submission like a pitch and putt on Bognor seafront? The Augusta committee won’t want that and will have set the course up to stop him. Should be a compelling spectacle, though I rather fancy the ever-consistent Spaniard Jon Rahm, the one-time world

The Liverpool defence might have decided in a rare show of togetherness to demonstrate what the word ‘appalling’ means, and Spurs only had a pathetic Manchester United to beat, but something strange is happening to football. After all, Manchester United have conceded six goals before (well, one other time since the 1930s) and Liverpool have conceded seven before (just a couple of other times since the 1930s) — but both on the same day! So what’s going on? Like actors performing out of their skulls at dress rehearsals because the pressure of a first night is off, are footballers flying through games with freedom, flair and zest, ready to try

José Mourinho, it was surprising to read, recently said how relieved he was that the Amazon Prime cameras were out of his hair and he could get back to working in private, the way he likes it. Given that the Spurs documentary programmes, part of the All or Nothing sports series, are long promotional videos for José, made with his consent and, it would appear, absolute collaboration, this was a risible remark. And it turns out erroneous. Far from ending the series, one cameraman continues to work — and was spotted last week at an upmarket bar in Chingford, where Harry Kane and Son Heung-min were relaxing after a training

Crowds, Covid and sport: could it get any crazier? I don’t mind about golf: no idiots yelling ‘Get in the hole’ at every opportunity. But Formula 1 without a few thousand petrol heads going berserk is even more tiresome than usual: a minor wheelspin at the start, then Lewis wins. One-day cricket in an empty ground will feel a bit odd. Not even a lone voice abusing Steve Smith in the upcoming games against the Aussies. Sport as purely a TV event is pretty limited. A friend had missed the PM’s volte-face on letting small crowds into the Bob Willis games, so was turned away when he tried to buy