Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 91 i Wisden Cricket Monthly

If you happen to have a spare 11 minutes and 47 seconds to hand, go and find the video of Jacob Bethell batting at Southampton earlier this month. I promise you it’ll be worth it. In the whole realm of online cricket highlights (and that’s a key distinction) I’d wager that it’s not possible to spend a more pleasurable 11 minutes and 47 seconds. That 11 minutes and 47 seconds contains basically everything you should want to see. The class and touch are already a given – the absurdly early scudding pull shot against the definitely-not-slow left-armer Nandre Burger (01:56), the deft dab that runs straight off the bat face, just fine of deep third (03:10), the preeningly gorgeous checked six down the ground (0:59), the shot of a boy…

Maybe I’ve just drunk the ECB Kool-Aid or eaten too many Tyrrells crisps (guilty as charged), but I have a confession: I’m a middle-aged man and I enjoy The Hundred. I also enjoy the County Championship and believe Test cricket at its best is peerless sporting entertainment. The England-India series was Test cricket at its best. Nothing can compare, and after that nerve-shredding last hour at The Oval I felt bereft. Not because England had lost but because the utterly addictive daily drama was over. No more Gill cover drives or Siraj celebrations; no more Harry Brook counterpunches or Rooty records. I needed a cricket fix and thankfully I didn’t have to wait long. Just over 24 hours later I was at Lord’s in the sunshine to watch Grace Harris…

“We would support a slight reduction in Championship cricket alongside a change to the current structure in order to create a better competition for fans and players ASHLEY GILES ASHLEY GILES Worcestershire CEO We have tried to look at this debate through different lenses, taking into account the views of our members, supporters, partners and, very importantly, our players. We also need to consider our own staff, whose workloads continue to rise, particularly with the addition of women’s cricket to our calendar – which is absolutely necessary for the growth of the game. On and off the field we are stretched. We would support a slight reduction in County Championship cricket alongside a change to the current structure in order to create a better competition for fans and players, and to…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Lancs, CC (H), Sep 24-27 The Jersey-born 21-year-old Asa Tribe only graduated from Cardiff Metropolitan University in July but has been an increasingly influential figure at the top of the order in both red- and white-ball cricket for Glamorgan this summer. While their One-Day Cup defence couldn’t have gone much worse -finishing rock bottom of Group A – Tribe amassed 401 runs at 80.20, with two unbeaten hundreds, before plundering 206 at Northants when Glamorgan’s Championship promotion push resumed. Sandwiched between his One-Day Cup exploits and Wantage Road epic, Tribe squeezed in two internationals for Jersey, scoring 175 and 53* against Papua New Guinea and Qatar, his last seven all-format innings yielding an astonishing 782 runs at an average of 195.5 – form which has helped him…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Derby, CC (H), Sep 24-27 Kent’s hopes of reaching T20 Finals Day were ended by a Liam Livingstone blitz in their quarter-final at Old Trafford. The Spitfires lost Tawanda Muyeye to the first ball of the match and then, after posting 153, ran into Livingstone’s brutal 85 from 45 balls, which saw Lancashire over the line with nine balls remaining. The sides met again at Canterbury a few days later in a keenly contested Championship match, which was set for a thrilling finale until rain extinguished hope of a positive result. At the time of writing, Kent remain winless since April and sit 28 points adrift at the foot of Division Two. More positive news is the return of former skipper Sam Northeast, who will re-join the…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Gloucs, CC (H), Sep 24-27 June 22, 2024 and Ealing third XI are taking on Kenton in the Middlesex County Cricket League 3rd Tier Division One. Having been skittled for 108, Ealing slip to defeat by four wickets, but not before their teenage opening bowler lands several punches. He finishes with figures of 7-3-9-5. August 2025 and that same teenage opening bowler passes through the Lord’s gates. Rather than head for the stands, he wanders into the pavilion, climbs the staircase and hooks a right into the home dressing room. He is preparing for his List A-debut, having appeared for Middlesex in the T20 Blast a month earlier. Some rises are slow burners, others happen at warp speed. Middlesex’s Jamie Feldman, who only turned 18 in June,…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Essex, CC (A), Sep 24-27 Fittingly Sean Dickson was there at the end. In what was his final act for Somerset, the 34-year-old finished unbeaten on 33 from just 22 balls, sharing a tournament-defining 88-run stand with Will Smeed. From the non-striker’s end, Dickson had the perfect view as his skipper Lewis Gregory smoked 18 from five balls, including the six that completed a record-breaking chase against Hampshire to seal their third T20 title. Three summers on from joining Somerset as a supposed red-ball specialist, Dickson departs for Glamorgan as one of the domestic circuit’s most feared white-ball hitters, and a two-time T20 champion. “It meant so much to me,” Dickson tells WCM of the second title. “Having the opportunity to finish the game with Lewis seemed…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Notts, CC (A), Sep 24-27 There was more quarter-final heartbreak for the Bears in the Blast, losing offthe penultimate ball to Somerset, with Sean Dickson smashing 18 off Ed Barnard’s final over as they exited at the last-eight stage for the fifth campaign in succession. The Championship visit to The Oval that followed two days later briefly promised an upset to keep alive their slim chances of a title push, but rain and a flattening pitch ruined any chance of a positive result, and that was effectively that for a season which falls into the ‘what might have been’ category. That quarter-final at Taunton was a cruel inversion of Barnard’s season, which overall has been stellar. With two red-ball rounds remaining he was well clear at the…

BIRMINGHAM PHOENIX BOUGHT BY: Knighthead Capital Management, who also own Birmingham City FC. NFL star Tom Brady is involved FOR HOW MUCH? £40.2 million for 49 per cent LONDON SPIRIT BOUGHT BY: Tech Titans, a US-based consortium including the CEOs of Microsoft and Google FOR HOW MUCH? £145.5 million for 49 per cent MANCHESTER ORIGINALS BOUGHT BY: RPSG Group, owners of Lucknow Super Giants FOR HOW MUCH? £81.2 million for 70 per cent NORTHERN SUPERCHARGERS BOUGHT BY: Sun Group, owners of Sunrisers Hyderabad FOR HOW MUCH? £100 million for 100 per cent OVAL INVINCIBLES BOUGHT BY: Reliance Industries Ltd, owners of Mumbai Indians FOR HOW MUCH? £60.3 million for 49 per cent SOUTHERN BRAVE BOUGHT BY: GMR Group, Delhi Capitals co-owners and owners of Hampshire CCC, Southern Brave’s host club…

Darren Stevens tormented me. In fairness he tormented a lot of batters, but I just had no answers to him. In white-ball cricket when I was attacking I played him well but in red-ball cricket, against the new ball, those slips felt like they were in your pocket so if you nicked anything you were out. I just couldn’t work out how to play against him. I couldn’t score off him and then he’d just get me out. I never got on top of him. I liked to play the ball late and use pace, and he didn’t offer me any pace or any bad balls, so you had to make the play against him and I never really wanted to. If I got out I wanted it to be…

‘Street clubs’ is perhaps the most innovative element of Chance to Shine. They engage thousands of young people in under-served areas with weekly sessions that typically run all year round. The sessions are completely free. Players don’t need to bring any equipment, and they can wear what they like. The sessions tend to take place in sports halls, youth clubs, parks, even places of worship. Most clubs are open to all genders, though some are female-specific. The reality is that in most cases these clubs provide young people with their only chance to play club cricket; invariably for Street players, there are few ‘traditional’ clubs within reachable proximity, and limited means of travel even if there were. In competitions, CTS’s Street cricketers play a format called Street20. Played with a…

Send your answers to editorial@wisden.com. Entries must be received by October 27, 2025 WIN! * Only available to UK residents. 1. 5 years ago… On September 27, 2020, Essex drew with Somerset in the Bob Willis Trophy final at Lord’s and were crowned champions based on their higher first-innings score. Who made 172 in Essex’s first innings and finished top of the tournament’s run-scoring charts? 2. 10 years ago… On September 19, 2015, Gloucestershire beat Surrey by six runs in the final of the One-Day Cup at Lord’s. Which Ashes winner top-scored with 50 for Gloucestershire in their last professional match? 3. 15 years ago… On September 18, 2010, Warwickshire defeated Somerset by three wickets in the CB40 final at Lord’s. Which spinner, who in August 2025 returned career-best T20…

One of the many absurd postures of the last Conservative government was a fad for the power pose. This involved ministers, at the behest of blue-shirted consultants, making policy announcements with their legs splayed unfeasibly wide. One feared they would either topple over or split their trousers but they generally got away with just seeming daft. A few observers may have recognised the gait. Kris Srikkanth, the India opening bat, when watched from square-leg or point, also stood with his feet almost a metre apart. Had someone tied the middle straps of his pads together, his lower half would have looked like a capital A. India’s most consequential batter of the 1980s, the one whose style and tempo has had the most significant influence despite averaging merely 29.88 in 43…

Let’s call it the accusatory tense, the particular phrasing deployed by county social media admins when they want to hint that an umpiring decision is, in their view, a shocker without saying it outright. The use of ‘adjudged’ is often a giveaway. There’s ‘given out’ as well, to indicate their batter is not ‘out’ and not ‘not out’, but a secret third thing. The ECB take a dim view of this, feeling that the suggestive non-criticism invites ire upon umpires, and Lancashire provided a textbook example during T20 Finals Day. “Livingstone LBW upheld on review – deemed no bat off a Lewis Gregory delivery,” the Red Rose tweeted, and the response was predictable and depressing, with over 100 disparaging replies directed at TV umpire Sue Redfern. The UltraEdge evidence could…

1. Asa Tribe Glamorgan & Jersey 4 Four hundreds in our qualification period for the Glamorgan opener, including a maiden first-class double against Northants to nudge his county closer to Championship promotion. Tribe also excelled in the One-Day Cup, making two tons and averaging 80, and still found time to represent his native Jersey in the Cricket World Cup Challenge League, making 175 in an impressive victory over PNG and following up with a match-winning half-century against Qatar to put the island nation in a strong position to progress to the 2027 World Cup Qualifier play-off. The 21-year-old is turning heads and was snapped up by Paarl Royals in September’s SA20 auction. 2. Phil Salt England, Manchester Originals & Lancashire 141 After a quiet Hundred for the disappointing Manchester Originals…

*Only available to UK residents CONTACT US AT Wisden Cricket Monthly, 5 Beaufoy Walk (off Black Prince Road) Lambeth, London, SE11 6AA editorial@wisden.com LETTER OF THE MONTH Time to embrace injury substitutes There were two instances during the England-India series that ensured the subject of injury substitutes yet again reared its head: Rishabh Pant’s fractured right foot during the fourth Test at Old Trafford and Chris Woakes’ dislocated shoulder during the final Test at The Oval. When both eventually returned to the crease, it was clear that their injuries left them severely compromised. Whilst no one can deny their heroic efforts, a Test match is not the front line and walking wounded (injured batters) should not be issued with rifles and ammunition (bats and pads), à la Rorke’s Drift. It…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Yorks, CC (A), Sep 24-27 “There were no doubts from me,” declares Durham head coach Ryan Campbell, speaking to WCM as the ink dries on a two-year contract extension. “I’ve got a lot of unfinished business. We’ve only just started.” That will be music to the ears of Durham fans given that, in the Australian’s three seasons at the helm, he has led the county to Division One of the County Championship and into the T20 Blast quarter-finals for the last two summers. Supporters, players and staff have fallen for him and his methods, while Campbell has fallen in love with the whole package. “The north-east is such a beautiful place, and the people are so friendly,” he explains. “I love going to work every day. My…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Middx, CC (A), Sep 24-27 Gloucestershire were comprehensively beaten by Somerset in the quarter-final of the One-Day Cup, ending any hopes of adding a silver lining to what has been an indifferent season across formats. In the Blast they languished in the lower reaches of the South Group and had won just once all season in the Championship after 12 rounds of matches. Slumping to 150 all out in that knockout match at Taunton, only Jack Taylor and Cameron Bancroft went past 25, allowing the home side to romp home with more than 13 overs to spare. While his team have struggled, red-ball skipper Bancroft (796 Championship runs at 46.82) has remained resolute at the top of the order and signed a two-year contract extension which will…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Leics, CC (H), Sep 24-27 Aglance at the Championship table would suggest that Ray Payne, Northamptonshire’s chief executive, was over-egging it when he described Darren Lehmann’s “exceptional impact” in his first season as head coach. Certainly, the Wantage Road faithful would have hoped for better red-ball returns – Northants sit one from bottom in Division Two with two matches remaining – but a rousing Blast campaign, which saw the Steelbacks reach Finals Day for the first time since 2016, courtesy of Ravi Bopara’s stunning ton to upset Surrey in the quarter-final at The Oval – and the rapid development of several players, most notably Saif Zaib and Justin Broad, has offered encouragement for next season and beyond. Payne was reacting to the news that Lehmann had extended…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Hants, CC (A), Sep 24-27 Having qualified for the Blast quarter-finals for the fourth year in succession – topping the South Group for the third summer in four years – Surrey began their last-eight clash with Northamptonshire as hot favourites to progress to Finals Day. But while their red-ball game smarts are razor sharp, putting them within touching distance of a historic fourth consecutive Championship title, in the shorter format they’ve repeatedly come unstuck at crunch moments. Not since the inaugural year of 2003 have the club won a men’s T20 title. The humdinger against the Steelbacks in the first week of September was the latest example, as a full house at The Oval witnessed the home side stumble and fall in their chase after Ravi Bopara…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Sussex, CC (H), Sep 24-27 Isaac Mohammed is, as he told Worcestershire’s YouTube channel, “loving everything at the moment”. Rightly so, too. Having joined the Pears from the academy of local rivals Warwickshire in June, the 17-year-old immediately made his professional debut in the T20 Blast, was an ever-present in the One-Day Cup, and then notched a century for England’s under-19s in early September. “The lads have introduced me well into the group and I’ve fitted in straight away,” said Mohammed. “It hasn’t felt hard to communicate with the boys, and to learn how the boys play. It’s quite a different environment – we’re tight around cricket and away from cricket. The boys are legends. They’re great to chat with, they’re great to be around.” Having a…

16. A LONG HALF HOUR BY STEPHEN CHALKE (2010) In his mid-40s, Stephen Chalke was working in Bristol in adult education. Government reforms of the early 1990s ushered in a new boss who “belonged to that school of management that meets every challenge with a structural reorganisation”. Chalke took voluntary redundancy. However, he did not renounce his faith in the value of extra-mural teaching. He became a student himself, at a University of Bath evening-class on feature-writing, run by a fizzing ex-journalist called Hazel: “You’ve got to hear a voice reading it. You’ve got to catch a rhythm.” Three years earlier, after a relatively poor season for his wandering club, Chalke had also resolved to undergo some adult education in cricket. Given the phone number of ex-Somerset seamer, Ken Biddulph,…

In case you hadn’t noticed, Brendon McCullum really, really doesn’t like the word ‘Bazball’. According to his latest comments on the For the Love of Cricket podcast, he thinks it’s “disrespectful” for his team’s approach to be simplified to “swing[ing] the bat as hard as we can, try[ing] to take wickets and then go[ing] for a round of golf and a few beers.” It could be argued that Baz and his acolytes are the ones at fault here, seeing as the word entered common parlance more than three years ago, long before the team’s attributes had crystallised in the public imagination. If they were really that concerned by perception, the narrative was quite literally theirs to be reclaimed. But at least they have been consistent in their distaste. Way back in…

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, though not in that order. Five days after England lost to South Africa at Headingley with a whopping 175 balls to spare, they pulled off the biggest win in ODI history at Southampton. In between came Lord’s, which would have gone to a super over had Jofra Archer hit the last ball for six. As far as Brendon McCullum was concerned, there was an obvious explanation for this off-the-charts oscillation. “The scheduling isn’t ideal,” he said after England’s 342-run triumph at Utilita Bowl. “But that’s just the way it is, and it’s not going to change, so we’re going to have to find ways to deal with it. We’re bouncing between The Hundred and other franchise tournaments and…

In August 2021, the US government pulled its last troops out of Afghanistan, ending their 20-year presence in the country. The withdrawal had been accompanied by assurances from the US president Joe Biden that a Taliban takeover would be “highly unlikely”, yet within hours those assertions would be in the mud. Hundreds of thousands of civilians began the rush to flee the country. Overnight, to be a woman under Taliban rule was to be banned from universities, sports, and parks. But to be a woman cricketer, and thus a symbol of progress, was to live in fear of death. With Taliban henchmen literally on the search for female cricketers, the cohort who had just the previous November been granted official contracts from the Afghanistan Cricket Board had to move swiftly.…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Somerset, CC (H), Sep 24-27 Essex have picked up form in Championship cricket to open up some breathing space between themselves and the drop, but with two matches to go it was still by no means guaranteed that they will be playing top-tier cricket next year. Should they survive, they can look back on some positives, namely the development of a young cohort that the club can build around in the years to come. The stylish right-hander Charlie Allison has enjoyed a sparkling first season, making four tons and seven fifties across the formats, while Charlie Bennett, the tall seamer who signed a rookie contract midway through the summer, looks an interesting prospect and the bustling all-rounder Noah Thain has stepped up when called upon. Furthermore, with…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Northants, CC (A), Sep 24-27 After winning five of their first seven matches, promotion from Division Two of the Championship had looked odds-on for Leicestershire from as far back as the end of May. After a rain-curtailed draw with Gloucestershire, the champagne was finally taken office, and the Foxes could celebrate the end of their 22-year exile from the top division. Ahead of the fixture, star performer and stand-in skipper Ian Holland was awarded the prestigious Gold Fox cap in recognition of his outstanding contributions, so it was fitting that the all-rounder, who has taken 35 wickets at 19.37 and scored 470 runs this term, was at the crease when play was abandoned and promotion confirmed. “There’s a lot of emotion, excitement, and relief in the dressing…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Worcs, CC (A), Sep 24-27 The wicket itself, that of Ed Barnard caught at extra-cover on the drive, was not especially remarkable beyond the impression of a canny piece of deception by the left-arm spinner. But the significance of the moment should not be lost on anybody who cares about the state and complexion of English cricket. In January 2020, the African Caribbean Engagement (ACE) programme was launched by Surrey CCC, in response to the decline of Black British professional cricketers and the shocking stat that less than one per cent of the recreational game was made up of Black players. Ten months later ACE was made an independent charity, able to use its extra funding from Sport England to develop a grassroots programme and an elite…

NEXT MEN’S MATCHES: Durham, CC (H), Sep 24-27 Imam-ul-Haq’s century was not enough for Yorkshire, who fell 18 runs short in their One-Day Cup semi-final against Hampshire at Scarborough. Liam Dawson had earlier blazed 142 off 116 balls as the visitors posted 304-6. Yorkshire looked well placed at 171-3 in the 31st over as they chased a revised 254 in 41, but lost two wickets in the 32nd, including the run-out of Imam. It was a double blow from which the home side never recovered, leaving coach Anthony McGrath to rue the lack of clarity. “The plan was just to try and get down to five or six overs with wickets in hand. But I think, if we’re being honest, apart from Imam, we looked like we had a bit…

ENGLAND’S WORLD CUP SQUAD NAT SCIVER-BRUNT (CAPTAIN) EM ARLOTT TAMMY BEAUMONT LAUREN BELL ALICE CAPSEY CHARLIE DEAN SOPHIA DUNKLEY SOPHIE ECCLESTONE LAUREN FILER SARAH GLENN AMY JONES HEATHER KNIGHT EMMA LAMB LINSEY SMITH DANNI WYATT-HODGE Tammy Beaumont can still remember crying on the Lord’s balcony, wondering if all the sacrifices were worth it. Wondering whether she was even good enough. England had just been beaten by Australia in the first ODI of the 2013 Ashes and another opportunity had passed her by. Coming in at Nº.6 with the match on the line, she was dismissed cheaply and watched her team slip to a narrow defeat. This was Beaumont’s 51st appearance for England, and she was yet to reach fifty in any format. “I thought, ‘If we don’t win this game…

After a season of stasis comes the big upheaval. The Hundred’s fifth edition was billed as a transitional year, the eight teams moving from being centrally run to becoming partially or totally privately owned. On October 1, control of the eight teams will change hands. The Hundred will change with it. There is much that could shift, from the team names to the 100-ball format itself. First, however, it’s best to consider the question behind the question: How will these decisions be made and by whom? And what do these people want and why? Many of the calls – but not all of them – will be made by the newly formed Hundred board, which consists of four ECB reps (whose votes are double weighted), and, with a couple of…

THE RECENTLY RETIRED GLOUCESTERSHIRE OPENER SPEAKS TO JO HARMAN-MCGOWAN ABOUT HIS COMPLICATED RELATIONSHIP WITH CRICKET, RECEIVING THE HAIR-DRYER TREATMENT FROM JOHN BRACEWELL, AND NOT BEING CUT OUT FOR HIGH-LEVEL SPORT PART 1 THE END On July 31 of this year, Chris Dent announced he was retiring from cricket with immediate effect. Having made his debut for Gloucestershire as a teenager, he had become a figurehead for the club, serving as skipper for four seasons and a permanent fixture at the top of the order. But the last few years of his career had been a struggle. The game had become something to be endured rather than enjoyed and his battle with anxiety had restricted him to five first-team appearances in 2024, prompting Dent to call time on his career. I…

Do you know someone deserving of a place in the Wisden Club Cricket Hall of Fame? Email editorial@wisden.com “Everyone was in awe of Dessie Haynes. He always gave really good advice and never put any pressure on you Sitting in class is one thing, absorbing lessons another. Graham Shaw had some outstanding mentors – Clayton Lambert and Ijaz Ahmed at Redcar, Desmond Haynes at Guisborough – but he also learned to temper a domineering game based on crunching straight drives to become the North Yorkshire & South Durham League’s supreme local batter from the late-1980s into the 2000s. ‘Shawsy’ is the rep XI’s all-time record appearance maker, while his phenomenal 57 NYSD hundreds, all helmetless, is bettered only by Lambert’s 69. Starting out in village cricket with Loftus, the 18-year-old…

“Australia had Brett Lee and they had their tails up. This was not a slow pitch, it was a bouncy pitch – watch the replays! But I wasn’t nervous To me, sports and music go hand in hand. Since my retirement from cricket, for the past 14 years I’ve been doing music full-time, and recently I got together with Chris Gayle to collaborate on a track, Livin’ It Up, about somebody who plays sports and travels around the world having a good time. Chris and I have known each other for a long time, playing together as teenagers. If you know Chris Gayle you know he’s someone who’s always bubbly, extravagant, giving off that party vibe, so if I’m going to do a song with my friend it’s got to…