Roger Alton is a former editor of the Observer and the Independent. He writes the Spectator Sport column.
On Sunday morning a friend texted: ‘You watching the big bash, or the domestic stuff down in Australia?’ On one channel, you could be in Cape Town as Ben Stokes slaughtered the bowling attack of the world’s No. 1 side; one click and you were in Brisbane at the Gabba to see the Heat play the
So long, then, to another thrilling year of sport in which the full range of human possibility — from the dismal frailties of the recidivists who run world football to the brazen brilliance of Japan’s rugby players — made for an intoxicating mix. It began and ended with two epic highs. Back in January, Tommy
There’s nothing quite like a sporting celebration, but the lash-up after Britain’s (almost) inevitable victory in the Davis Cup tennis final against Belgium this weekend should be unique. For a start, there will be hardly anyone there: just Judy Murray and Andy, with Jamie popping his head in: ‘Have some Irn-Bru boys, and, take another
So Smiley was right all along: the bloody Russians were the baddest of the bad. The Pound report on the epic scale of their state-sponsored doping and cheating in athletics was indeed seismic. It can’t have come as that much of a surprise, though. In a remarkable investigation in July 2013, Martha Kelner and Nick
Not since Walter Palmer, a cudddly Minnesota dentist, put down his drill and vanished off the face of the earth having made sure that Cecil the Lion took a crossbow bolt for the team, has there been a disappearance quite like it. I refer of course to Craig Joubert, the hapless Durban-born referee last seen
England did have some clear winners in their otherwise beached Rugby World Cup campaign in the unlikely form of Lawrence Dallaglio, Martin Johnson and Jack Whitehall, principals in the dazzling Samsung Rugby School TV ads. Superbly funny and brilliantly filmed, the ads take a chipper Whitehall through the finer points of rugby with, among others,
Pity poor Chris Robshaw. England’s sturdy captain might have a knockout girlfriend and exceptional skills on the cappuccino machine, but he has taken one hell of a pounding from Her Majesty’s armchair battalion of former players and coaches, much more than he took from Sam Warburton at Twickenham on Saturday. Give the guy a break.
A thumping physical confrontation testing mind, muscle and sinew to the ultimate degree, and from which there could only be one winner. No, not the upcoming Rugby World Cup but the breathtaking confrontation between Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic in the US Open final. Rain delays meant that for British audiences it didn’t start till
Sebastian Coe’s new job as head of world athletics will be a heck of a lot easier thanks to the outstanding World Championships that just finished in Beijing. He has a chance to push athletics back to the forefront of world sport — after all, what is more thrilling than one human being trying to
The roar of the Premier League is beginning to drown out everything else in sport (there’s even Friday night football now: another blissful resting place occupied. Shouldn’t we ring-fence some time — greenbelt-style — that football can’t colonise, say 2 a.m. on a Monday, that’s preserved from football’s endless development?) But while there’s a chance,
Jumping the shark isn’t yet an Olympic sport, but if it were the International Olympic Committee would be a shoo-in for gold. And silver and bronze too. Amid some low-key hoopla last week, the IOC awarded the 2022 Winter Games to Beijing. Yes, that’s the same Beijing that staged the 2008 Olympics and in a
I have never met an Aussie I didn’t like, but, crikey, their sporting indefatigability is exhausting. Don’t they ever give up? In the past few days, they have pulled one out of the bag against the Springboks in the southern hemisphere Rugby Championship when they looked buried; trailing 20—17 with time up, they turned down
Well thank heaven for Nick Kyrgios. The lavishly inked, blinged and barbered Aussie is quite one of the most thrilling spectacles in tennis. And in a so-far magnificent Wimbledon he has caught the eye more than most. Just as he would want. Much pursing of tennis writers’ lips at Kyrgios’s behaviour during his defeat by
A car crash is a terrible thing, but hordes of people still slow down to cop an eyeful on the motorway. Car-crash sport is equally compelling. In the US Open, up at Chambers Bay, Tiger Woods opened with two of the worst rounds he had ever played: 80, with eight bogeys and one triple bogey,
A rather desultory Test series is taking place in the Caribbean where Australia are marmalising the West Indies, with a one-time Bournemouth club cricketer called Adam Voges scoring his maiden Test century at the near-pensionable age of 35 (the oldest ever as it happens: bodes well for the Ashes, doesn’t it?). During lunch the other
If heaven is a place on earth, as Belinda Carlisle so wisely observed, then surely that place has to be Lord’s on a Test match Saturday. Celestial indeed, and a privilege to have been there for just a part of what was one of the most thrilling Test matches in history. More runs scored than
If you watched England’s three-day Test defeat by the West Indies in Barbados the other day to the bitter end you will have heard some of the England players being interviewed afterwards. They uniformly referred to their coach, the now departed Peter Moores, as ‘Mooresie’. And therein you feel lies a few of the problems
Here’s an election-winning idea for Dave: forget about Aston Villa (or West Ham) and become a full-on Bournemouth fan. They were on the telly the other night, all but sealing promotion to the Premier League, and played a bit like Brazil: fluent high-speed passing, wave after wave of attacks. They play in a very smart
He’s a tall man, Kevin Pietersen, and he casts a long shadow. It loomed large over the Long Room at Lord’s last week where the great, the good, and the not very good at all of the cricket world had gathered for the annual Wisden dinner, one of the most enjoyable events in the life
The grand slam in golf is a feat almost impossible to imagine now. It meant winning all four golfing majors in the same year, and has only been done once, by the extraordinary Bobby Jones in 1930. Jones was awarded a ticker-tape reception in New York, and a golfing writer of the time with a
