Sport

As we landed at Houston, I suddenly thought of my first visit to America, in 1965 during what we didn’t then call my gap year. Forty-eight years does seem a long time, but my fascination with this country is undimmed. The occasion of this trip was to talk at the British Studies seminar at the University of Texas, which has become a regular gig over the years, and Austin is now a nest of old friends. This time I made a new pal. Holly McCarthy is a graduate student, who became my cicerone, offering to take me across Austin on the back of her motor-scooter. After a deep breath, I

Does this advert ring a bell? It showed a handsome young man hitting a cricket ball far into the distance. It appeared on the Tube last spring. The tagline read: ‘How far can you hit it, Rory?’ The advert said that the young man was Rory Hamilton-Brown, captain of Surrey County Cricket Club. It urged commuters to watch his team play. It suggested glamour and clamour; neither of which is associated with stolid county cricket. Something was afoot. Hamilton-Brown had been appointed three years earlier, aged 22, to rejuvenate Surrey, a once great club wandering in the wilderness. He was the youngest captain in the country, and one of the

Today, February 28th 2013, is the 80th anniversary of the conclusion to one of the finest – and certainly the most controversial – test series ever played. Eighty years ago today, Wally Hammond and Bob Wyatt put on 125 for the third wicket as England strolled to an eight wicket win at Sydney. This capped a remarkable winter for the tourists and sealed a crushing 4-1 series victory. It remains one of English cricket’s greatest foreign triumphs. Rarely before and rarely since has pure theory been so completely matched to the needs of applied cricket. No wonder Douglas Robert Jardine is still remembered as arguably the finest captain to ever

The news, reported by the New York Times, that Lance Armstrong is preparing to confess his sins reminds me of this passage from the Book of Daniel: Thou, O king, sawest, and behold a great image. This great image, whose brightness was excellent, stood before thee; and the form thereof was terrible. This image’s head was of fine gold, his breast and his arms of silver, his belly and his thighs of brass, His legs of iron, his feet part of iron and part of clay. Remember, however, that golden-sunned afternoon in Paris in the summer of 2005. On the Champs-Elysees Lance Armstrong, the undisputed titan of his era, stands

With the Don at three and Keith Miller inked for the all-rounder’s role at six there are only two open spots in Australia’s all-time middle order. It is a measure of Ricky Ponting’s greatness that no-one doubts he’s a sensible, worthy contender for one of those places. You may prefer the claims of Clem Hill, Charlie McCartney, Stan McCabe, Neil Harvey or Greg Chappell, but Punter is undoubtedly part of the conversation and only a fool would scoff at including him in this Fantasy XI. That’s how good he was. In England I fancy there’s sometimes a tendency to forget how fine a batsman Ponting was and instead place a

Who was the greatest sporting star who fought in the first world war? It is a difficult argument to settle at a century’s distance, with nobody still alive who saw them play and only fleeting glimpses from the very first steps of the newsreel era. The names are less familiar now, but contemporary accounts of their exploits and the sporting record books prove that they belong in the first rank of British sporting history. British Future has selected an inevitably subjective ‘1st XI’ of the fallen, to help to bring the names of these sporting greats back into our public consciousness. In our new essay How should sport remember, published

And then there were four. If Andy Murray’s accomplishments still make him the least of the great quartet ruling tennis in this golden age that’s about as useful a comment as remarking that Roberto Duran was outshone by Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns. It may be true but it doesn’t matter very much. There have been other great eras in tennis – Borg, McEnroe and Connors for one – but there’s never been a quartet quite like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and, yes, Andy Murray. Consider this: eight men shared the ten Grand Slam tournaments preceding Roger Federer’s first Grand Slam victory (Wimbledon 2003). The

In one sense, I have some sympathy for Lance Armstrong. He has been hounded by the American anti-doping agency USADA who, like other federal agencies, are remorseless foes. Once they have their hooks in you they never let go. The usefulness of their investigations is another matter. Even so, Armstrong’s declaration that enough is enough and that he will no longer bother to defend himself against doping charges will doubtless be seen as a capitulation. Most people, I suspect, will take his silence as an admission of guilt. So it really wasn’t just about the bike, was it? Apparently not. The evidence against Armstrong may still – as far as