Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 54 i Wisden Cricket Monthly

“The Test game is thrillingly alive, and as we adjust to the loss of the king, there is perhaps no greater testament to his legacy than that Karachi, 2022. Even just those words are enough. A Test match, no less, in the city of lights, with Australia in the dirt. Australia, those alphas of the so-called western alliance – the team that Ramiz Raja said wouldn’t even bother showing up. Well, here they are, with the great Patrick Cummins returning for a sixth spell deep on day five. His opposing captain, Babar Azam, those owlish features alert to every possibility, rides the bounce and flat-bats it through straight mid-wicket. He is moving with delicate economy towards his double century; already he has more runs in a fourth-innings knock than any…

Wisden Cricket Monthly columnist, UK editor of ESPNcricinfo and former editor of The Cricketer @miller_cricket More than two decades ago, back in a time before England’s Test set-up had even begun to flirt with competence, a pair of selections were made that were to transform the team’s horizons. And how the sport has yearned for a repeat ever since. It wasn’t much more than a hunch that led to Marcus Trescothick (first-class average of 29.59) and Michael Vaughan (33.83) being spirited out of a failing county system by the incoming head coach, Duncan Fletcher, to be turned into the cornerstones of England’s first great Test team since the 1950s. In more recent years, however, England’s Test standards have been twanging back towards the mean like an over-taut resistance belt. In…

Wisden Cricket Monthly India correspondent @SurMenon When Virat Kohli walked out to bat on the second day of the recent day/night Test against Sri Lanka at Bengaluru, the fates seemed to have conspired to give him the ideal platform to make his first international century since November 2019, 72 innings ago. India were 241 ahead with three-and-a-half days left in the match. Soon, though, he played back to left-arm spinner Praveen Jayawickrama, fell leg before, stood for a moment bathed in disappointment and frustration, smiled wryly and walked back. Dismissed for 13. Statisticians weep when imperfections creep into a great player’s figures. For so long had Kohli averaged over 50 in each of the three formats that when it slipped below that benchmark, as it did after that dismissal, it…

This month saw one of cricket’s most treasured biennial traditions take place: the MCC Laws update, at which everyone confects some shock and outrage at a few minor tweaks to the game’s guidelines, before promptly forgetting all about it in time for the changes to actually come into effect in six months’ time. Bliss. It’s hard not to wonder if the MCC might actually be in on the grift, looking at the general pitiful state of discourse on social media and deciding to snare some publicity for themselves. Why else would they tie a completely common-sensical rule-change – that, after a caught dismissal, a new batter comes in at the end of the now-out batter, rather than it depending on whether those in the middle had crossed – to The…

’93 34 wickets – England v Australia, The Ashes, 1993 By Daniel Norcross, TMS commentator My sister-in-law is American. Her punishment for marrying my brother was to spend much of the summer in the early part of her marriage holed up in England watching cricket on the TV, which she did with patience and grace but absolutely no enthusiasm. Her first exposure to a Test match was, unhelpfully, watching Australia amass 602 in 206.3 overs at Trent Bridge in 1989 including a 382-ball 138 for Geoff Marsh. Even for a devoted Anglophile like her, the game was nothing more than a perverse exercise in watching entropy played out in the most Byzantine method yet devised. For four summers she endured, unmoved by some of the greats of the game. Then…

✓ The County Championship returns to a two-division structure for the first time since 2019, with 10 teams in Division One and eight in Division Two, with a two-up, two-down promotion and relegation system ✓ Each county, whichever division they are in, will play 14 matches – seven home and seven away ✓ The divisions reflect the outcome of the 2019 season, meaning that Lancashire, Northamptonshire and Gloucestershire (who earned promotion before the pandemic struck) join Essex, Hampshire, Kent, Somerset, Surrey, Warwickshire and Yorkshire in Division One. Nottinghamshire, who finished bottom of the top tier in 2019, are joined in Division Two by Derbyshire, Durham, Glamorgan, Leicestershire, Middlesex, Sussex and Worcestershire ✓ The season begins on April 7, with the first seven rounds of fixtures scheduled from Thursday-Sunday in successive…

“It was a bit like The Magnificent Seven, and I use that comparison in the most liberal sense,” says David Graveney of Durham’s breakout summer of 1992. Having mined the local leagues and offered a last hurrah to a motley crew of ageing stars, it was Larkins, Botham and Bainbridge rather than McQueen, Bronson and Brynner who took the field for the club’s first season as a first-class county. Graveney, then 39, arrived in the north-east having spent a solitary season at Somerset following almost 20 years with Gloucestershire. It was his task to captain the side after being convinced to take on the role by his close friend Geoff Cook. “Working with Geoff was just a dream come true for me,” the former left-arm spinner tells WCM. “He had…

There will only ever be one cricketer like Shane Warne. Only one other bowler has taken more than his 708 Test wickets, 37 five-wicket innings and 10 ten-wicket match hauls (Muttiah Muralitharan), but only one has ever played the game in the manner of the greatest exponent of cricket’s most difficult art. Warne’s early twirlings gave few signs that he would finish with one more than one-thousand wickets for Australia (he took 293 in ODIs, although only one five- wicket haul). In his first two Tests, against India in 1991/92, he took a grand total of one wicket, for 228 runs. Warne is one of 14 bowlers to have taken 0 or 1 for 200 or more in his first two Tests. Ten of them finished their career with fewer…

WARNE: THE DOCUMENTARY I watched it on Amazon when it first came out and enjoyed what I understood it to be, this nice, easy trip through the madness with Warne in full Sinatra mode. He is so guileless in it, and so charming and goofy and madly competitive, and the line-up of talking heads so in thrall to him, that it works just fine as fun nostalgia. I thought at the time how persuasive it would be to the uninitiated, how good a sell it would be for sports fans who don’t know their cricket. Then the news came through, and the game stopped, and I watched it again. And second time round the film takes on a different meaning, as if he was offering us up a design for…

Wisden Cricketers’ Almanack editor and Daily Mail writer @the_topspin He was the “archetypal Australian: strong, disrespectful of most authority, yet fiercely loyal to those he admired”. Wisden was referring to Rod Marsh, who died on March 4, but it might easily have been Shane Warne, who died later the same day. Archetypal, sure, but paradoxical too. Both were, it’s true, regarded by English cricket as Aussie paradigms, and feared accordingly. Yet both proved – in their own way – too Australian even for Australia. Marsh, a veteran of 96 Tests, never captained his country, which Mike Brearley thought a mistake: “Behind the abrasive front was a thoughtful, astute and humorous man, whose players, when he led Western Australia, were totally committed to him.” Brearley was convinced Marsh would have been…

1 Sonny Ramadhin, the legendary West Indian off-spinner, has died at the age of 92. Born in Trinidad, he took 158 wickets in 43 Tests and was pivotal to the West Indies’ first series win in England in 1950, sharing 59 victims with his spin-bowling partner Alf Valentine. The pair were immortalised as those “two little pals of mine, Ramadhin and Valentine” in a calypso by Lord Beginner. 2 Sarel Erwee and Kyle Verreynne [above] both hit maiden hundreds as South Africa defeated New Zealand by 198 runs at Christchurch’s Hagley Oval to draw the two-match Test series 1-1. The Kiwis had thumped their hosts in the first Test, Matt Henry returning match figures of 9-55 and hitting 58* from No.11 in a victory by an innings and 276 runs…

Wisden Cricket Monthly editor-at-large @SternWords Steven Finn describes the omission of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad from England’s tour of the Caribbean as “interesting”. It’s how he describes many things: the weather in Hove while storms Eunice and Franklin were doing their worst; Australian fans (“interesting characters”); and the occasionally sub-optimal experiences of covering the Ashes for Test Match Special, like getting Covid and having to commentate from his hotel room. “Interesting” is Finn’s verbal equivalent of a stock ball: landed on awkward length, it could move either way. A classic knowing euphemism, the sort that would appear on the @SoVeryBritish Twitter feed, and suggestive of a sense of humour drier than a Taunton turner. If you google Finn’s name, one of the first things that appears is a clip…

I learned so much from Warnie and he had a huge impact on my career. Because I bowled part-time leggies, when we were in Sri Lanka for my first tour [with the Australian Test team in 1999] he took me aside to teach me about the art of leg-spin. A couple of those tips that he gave me about my action I kept with me throughout my career. His love of sharing that knowledge was second to none. It’s already been said so many times that he was a legendary player, but from our perspective as teammates and mates he was a legend of a bloke. You knew where you stood with Warnie. There was no grey, it was black and white, and I loved that about him. I loved…

Less than 14 miles separate the home grounds of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire yet in other respects the East Midlands neighbours could be said to be worlds apart. Nottinghamshire have been county champions six times to Derbyshire’s once, have won five one-day trophies to Derbyshire’s three and two T20 Blast titles to Derbyshire’s none. The Incora County Ground, at a push, could squeeze in 5,000 spectators; Trent Bridge can hold 17,000, has hosted 64 Test matches, 49 GDIs and 11 T20ls and the club enjoys the financial clout that goes with it. it is also home to the Trent Rockets franchise in The Hundred, which featured five Nottinghamshire players in its inaugural season but none from Derbyshire. Six of the current Nottinghamshire squad have played Test cricket for England; the last…

Freelance cricket writer @cameronponsonby “We did all these fitness tests and Stanworth said, “Look if you don’t pass these you’re not going to he in, it’s as simple as that’’. And I failed pretty much everything “I never felt pressure growing up,” says Lancashire and England’s Saqib Mahmood. “I just did what I enjoyed and things came naturally. Pressure comes later when you become more aware of what’s going on around you, but at that age when I was growing up and very naive, there was no such thing as pressure for me.” It’s a confident assessment, as befits a fast bowler moving into his professional prime. It’s also immediately disputed by one of those closest to him at the time. “Was it Saqib who was saying he wasn’t nervous?”…

At the heart of club cricket Freelance sportswriter and stalwart club cricketer @reverse_sweeper On June 4,1993, not long before tea on the second day of the Ashes curtain-raiser at Old Trafford, the cricketing world’s collective jaw was lowered when a young blond leg-spinner’s first delivery in Ashes cricket fizzed, curved and then ripped along such an improbable flight path that England’s best player of spin, Mike Gatting, had to seek confirmation from the umpire that the ball that he’d seen (or not seen) rag past the outside edge of his bat, had in fact hit the stumps. It was soon anointed the ‘Ball of the Century’, and cricket would never be the same again. Just two short years earlier, however, and only 30 miles up the road, the same SK…

Send in your answers via email (editorial@wisden.com) or via post (Time Warp, Wisden Cricket Monthly, Fourth Floor, Bedser Stand, Kia Oval, Kennington, London, SE11 5SS). Entries must be received by April 13, 2022 1. 5 years ago… On April 7, 2017, which opener scored 165 on their Championship debut for Surrey against Warwickshire at The Oval having arrived at the club from Durham? 2. 10 years ago… On April 7, 2012, England defeated Sri Lanka by eight wickets at Colombo to square the Test series 1-1. Who was named Player of the Match after scoring 151 for the tourists? 3. 15 years ago… On April 28, 2007, Australia beat Sri Lanka by 53 runs on DL method in the World Cup final at Kensington Oval. Which unusual item was revealed…

Wisden staff writer @Taha_Wisden It’s manic. Or at least I am. I’ve rocked up to the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium just under three hours before the first Test between Pakistan and Australia gets underway, but I’m absolutely clueless as to how I can access the ground. At each checkpoint there are swarms of men in uniform with guns close enough to bring about jitters and little time for yours truly: my broken Urdu doesn’t help and the flashy media pass isn’t flashy enough. The focus is, understandably, on the bigger mission: to make sure nothing disrupts this historic event. Australia’s visit to Pakistan is their first since 1998, marking another significant milestone in the return of international cricket to the country. After Sri Lanka’s team bus was attacked in Lahore in…

Being true to yourself At a number of important junctures in my career, maybe I’ve made wrong decisions. The best players deal with those things and get back on track quickly. The ones who don’t quite do it quick enough have to learn from their mistakes and then not make them again. Maybe trying to become a line-and-length bowler as opposed to being an out-and-out quick stifled my ability to take wickets. Changing my run-up from long to shorter [to avoid hitting the stumps at the non-striker’s end as he ran in] messed with the mechanics of my bowling action, trying to find a short-term fix to something that had a deeper cause. Anderson and Broad’s axeing It feels like a lot of upheaval at once. With the change of…

An alternative prize will be provided if the winner is aged under 18, or if requested LETTER OF THE MONTH The miseducation of English cricketers While listening to Joe Root talk about the ‘red-ball reset’ needed in English domestic cricket, I could not help but make connections between the County Championship and the similar state of cricket in schools. As a junior-school teacher (up to under-13) who mixes the classroom with coaching, the steady trend towards brevity and mediocrity over the last 15 years has been evident as school fixtures have been squeezed into a limited-overs framework. Today’s typical junior-school (and club) cricketer will play a 20-over game, retire at 25 and bowl a maximum of four overs. Each match invariably ends up with the weaker team closing seven or…

The first time I played against Shane Warne was in a tour match, Surrey versus Australia, all the way back in 1993. They tossed the ball to this slightly round, spiky-haired blond bloke with an earring, who was pretty much unknown. I remember him bowling this delivery, round the wicket to me as a left-hander, and it pitched just on the cut strip, outside my off stump. I thrust a pad out at it to try and cover the spin, and it turned and bounced and shot over my right shoulder. I’m just thinking, ‘What the hell was that?’. I’d never seen a ball turn like that before. I suppose it was a precursor to the ball of the century [which Warne produced at Old Trafford a week later]. During…

The stars aligned for Derbyshire in 2012. Homegrown academy players, seasoned pros and overseas hires all just clicked, and in the second year of coach Karl Krikken’s reign the club, unexpectedly and gloriously, won Division Two of the County Championship. For players and fans alike, it was an extraordinary yet all too transitory moment. Derbyshire dropped back down into Division Two the following season and there they have remained since. Players left, the coach left, belts were tightened, the club scrambled to arrest the slide, and the moment of alignment was gone. Since then, head coaches have come and gone – Krikken, Graeme Welch, Kim Barnett, Dave Houghton each with big plans and fine words but none have cracked it. There are high hopes for this year with the appointment…

If a bowler can be judged by the quality of their scalps, then Viv Richards, Desmond Haynes, Kapil Dev, Mike Atherton and Steve Waugh is a pretty impressive list. Yet two that Rupert Evans remembers just as vividly are ones that got away while he was playing for the Minor Counties XI: “Mark Taylor, stone dead lbw, which would have left the Aussies 100-7 and in big trouble,” and Mohammad Azharuddin, “three yards down the track, totally stuffed, but the keeper missed it!” Dickie Bird once called the former Oxfordshire man “the best off-spinner I’ve seen outside the professional game”, while a spell of 11-2-26-1 at Taunton led Somerset coach Jack Birkenshaw to pull him to one side: “He said, ‘Lad, how old are you?’ I was 35. It was…

BEN GARDNER My Golden Summer Wisden.com's managing editor recalls belatedly falling for the game in the summer Andrew Strauss’ side reached the summit of the Test rankings It will always be a source of personal and professional shame that, until the age of 17, cricket played only a peripheral role in my life. Now, of course, it’s right at the centre. But then it served for me the same sort of function as the TV show Scrubs did: I could see the appeal and enjoyed it when it was on, but I also didn’t feel the urge to delve into the back catalogue to properly understand the minutiae of what was going on. I have since done enough scorecard scouring to fill in the gaps in my knowledge, wary of…

A small change can make a big difference. James Wallace re-imagines key moments from the game’s past The Match West Indies 111 (Greenidge 32; Dilley 7-37) & 237 (Richards 79; Emburey 7-55) v England 321 (Lamb 104) & 28-0 England won by 10 wickets The Cast John Emburey Viv Richards Mike Gatting Allan Lamb As Britain experienced a second ‘Summer of Love’, English cricket was about to have its own cultural reawakening... MG: This was the year it all changed for me. I’d had the fallout from the reverse sweep in the ’87 World Cup final and the row with Shakoor Rana in Pakistan. I was at the end of my tether. JE: Let’s be clear, Gatt – the performances weren’t much cop whilst you had the captaincy. Not to…