Cricket

Marcus Trescothick. Nick Compton. Alviro Petersen. James Hildreth. Craig Kieswetter. Jos Buttler. When all troops are fit and available Somerset enjoy a batting line-up one might compare favourably to this summer’s visiting New Zealanders. Today they were dismissed by Sussex for 76. At Horsham. Granted, Compton and Kieswetter were absent but, even so, this was a dismal showing.  Somerset, damn it, won the toss and chose (rightly!) to bat. At the time of typing Sussex are 241/7. The best that may be said of it is that this year the Wurzels are not teasing their supporters. A season that began with hopes that – at last! – the Cider Men

Sachin Tendulkar did not have the happiest of 40th birthdays last week. The man who has been worshipped as a god in India for most of his career lasted only six balls, playing for Mumbai in the Indian Premier League, before being clean bowled by a young West Indian off-spinner who was only a year old when Tendulkar made his international debut. His dismissal silenced the huge crowd who had turned out for him in Calcutta, disappointed the TV executives who know that Tendulkar at the wicket means higher ratings, and left him plenty of time to eat some of the 40lb chocolate birthday cake presented to him before the

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

Summer, or rather the hint or promise of it, only arrives with the publication of Wisden. The cricketers’ almanack – the venerable almanack – celebrates its 150th anniversary this season. It has been quite an innings. John Wisden (pictured above) created an institution that, happily, shows no sign of flagging. This year’s almanack clocks in at a chunky 1584 pages and is a fine edition that pays proper tribute to the Yellow Brick’s past. This second edition stewarded by Lawrence Booth confirms the impression fostered last season that his editorship is a considerable upgrade upon his predecessor’s. His prejudices are sound. Quite correctly, Booth is a conservative but not a

Slight treachery from Boris, who has written a glowing piece on the occasion of the New Statesman’s centenary. While most people will focus on his dissection of the evils of left-wingery and explanations for hatred of Margaret Thatcher, something else caught Steerpike’s eye: ‘My paranoia about the New Statesman and its terrific pieces went on for some months, until we finally met for physical combat, in the form of a cricket match. It was a torrid afternoon and I was full of nerves. Bernard Levin had come to watch, for heaven’s sake, and the New Statesman’s captain, Christian Wolmar, displayed what I am forced to call gamesmanship. At last we prevailed,

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

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

‘I’m fascinated by politics. But I’m not that enthralled by any of the parties.’ Those are the words of Andrew Strauss, who resigned the England cricket captaincy earlier today, in an interview with the Spectator last year. The interview was conducted by the former England cricketer Ed Smith, who remarked that ‘Strauss is not talked about with hushed awe’. Where the great Mike Brearley has entered mythology, Smith noted, Strauss has been merely marked ‘effective’. Now we must talk of Strauss the cricketer in the past tense; and Smith’s judgment merits revisiting. True, Strauss did not inspire awe. He was not a tactician, either in the modern or traditional mould. He was not a macho

And then there was one.  Of the four princes who made India the world’s best side to watch in the first decade of the 21st century, only Sachin Tendulkar – the first and greatest of them – remains. Saurav Ganguly, the tiger of Bengal, was first to leave the arena. Rahul Dravid, the classicist, departed last year. Now Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman, the most artistic member of India’s most formidable quartet, has announced his retirement from international cricket. As Cardus (who else?) wrote of Ranji, Laxman distributed his runs as largesse delivered in silk purses. If he could not claim Ranji’s aristocratic lineage, he was still, even in his own