The ashes

Wednesday

Roger Alton

Stuart Broad would make a great politician

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

Tuesday

Daniel Norcross

Can Ben Stokes save The Ashes?

England cricket fans rejoiced on Monday at the news that few saw coming. It was not their side’s comprehensive victory over reigning T20 World Champions West Indies at the weekend that had champagne corks popping and hope for a renaissance after a less than impressive summer coursing through the veins of the Barmy Army. Rather, it was the announcement that their talisman and Ginger General, Ben Stokes, had been added to the Ashes squad to tour Australia next month. Stokes had been sidelined for the vast majority of the 2021 season with a badly broken finger, sustained while playing for the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL last April. He had

Thursday

James Delingpole

The Amazon Prime doc that will convert anyone to cricket

Imagine rooting for the Australian cricket team. If you’re Scottish, Welsh or Irish — or Australian obviously — it might not be such a stretch. But for an Englishman, I suspect, it’s nigh on impossible. It would be like supporting Germany in the (football) World Cup. Or yearning for the All Blacks to win the rugby. We invented cricket, after all. And in that particular sphere, Australia is our natural enemy. They burned our bails in 1882 — ‘the Ashes of English cricket’ — and quite properly we have never forgiven them. But if that’s how you feel — and I really don’t blame you — then you should treat