Innehållsförteckning för Issue 65 från Wisden Cricket Monthly

ANDREW MILLER Wisden Cricket Monthly columnist, UK editor of ESPNcricinfo and former editor of The Cricketer @miller_cricket Do we need to talk about England’s ODI team? Probably, but not for the reasons you might think. On the one hand, something is clearly amiss with the 2019 World Cup winners – eight losses in their last 11 completed matches and no series win against a Full Member since July 2021 attest to that. On the other hand, we know exactly what is amiss – as Ben Stokes said in a tweet to this very publication: “Begins with S ends with E and has chedul in there as well.” For we’ve reached the tipping point in the sport that we all once knew. The warnings have been legion – not least from…

ISA GUHA @isaguha The revolution in women’s cricket has been bubbling away for some time. But while all roads have led to this spectacular gamechanging moment, we now find ourselves at a potential tipping point. Fifteen years on from the inaugural men’s IPL, the arrival in India of the Women’s Premier League (WPL) will change the game’s ecosystem forever. The numbers are dizzying. Figures for the tournament’s media rights – adeal worth $23m per season, equivalent to just under £700k per game – immediately makes the WPL the second most-valued women’s sports property in the world, hot on the heels of the WNBA in the US. At auction in mid-February, each of the five franchises received around £1.2 million to spend on between 15 and 18 players, resulting in bumper…

1 Aaron Finch, 36, has retired from international cricket. Having already stepped away from ODI cricket last September, the Australian, who skippered his country to T20 World Cup glory in 2021, has called time on his 12-year international career. Finch retires with two of the top three individual scores in T20I cricket, with his 172 made against Zimbabwe in 2018 sitting top of the all-time list. 2 The final of the second edition of the World Test Championship will be played at The Oval from June 7-11, with a reserve day in place for June 12. At the time of writing Australia and India sit first and second in the table, with Sri Lanka and South Africa also still in contention to qualify for the final. 3 Nat…

MATT ROLLER ESPNcricinfo associate editor @mroller98 1. The first auction (2008) Over the course of 10 hours at Mumbai’s Hilton Towers Hotel on February 20, 2008, cricket changed for good. Bollywood stars and India’s leading businessmen assembled to spend $28.5m on 75 players; MS Dhoni and Andrew Symonds went to bed worth over $1m more than when they woke up. It was, ESPNcricinfo said, “the day cricketers sold like stocks”. If there were any doubts about the transformative effect the IPL would have on the global game, this was the day that confirmed it. 2. McCullum’s 158* (2008) Fourteen years before their appointments as England coaches, Brendon McCullum and Matthew Mott sat in a hotel bar. McCullum had endured a “hopeless” net, which Mott brought to a premature end; he…

THE WCM COACHING TEAM Ollie Pope England’s Test No.3 Lydia Greenway Former England batter turned coach and broadcaster Keaton Jennings Lancashire and England opening bat Matt Parkinson Lancashire and England leg-spinner Toby Radford Former West Indies batting coach Mark Ramprakash Former England batting coach Anya Shrubsole World Cupand Asheswinning former England seamer John Simpson Middlesex wicketkeeper Alex Tudor Former England fast bowler; now head coach at Kimbolton School “I’m slightly built so struggle to put pace on the ball against spinners. If they bring the field up it’s hard to take singles and sweeping leads to more dismissals (bowled and lbw) than boundaries. Any tips?” Ollie Pope: I wasn’t the biggest guy when I was younger – I’m still not – and I had the same issue with developing pace…

Do you know someone deserving of a place in the Wisden Club Cricket Hall of Fame? Email editorial@wisden.com “I bowled Phil Simmons two balls. He hit them both for six and said to a fielder, ‘ Tell your man, he can’t bowl dem ting at me’” September 2003, a low, late-summer sun stretches shadows across Lord’s hallowed turf and Sandiacre, in their first national knockout final and behind the game for most of the day, have two runs to defend in the final over. Skipper John Trueman approaches Sheldon Guerra, who had been expensive earlier, and can’t say much beyond “bowl straight” and “good luck”. A slashed single to third-man brings Bath to within one, nine down. Next ball hits the pads. “I screamed at the umpire and felt all…

The Match India 188 (Phadkar 74; Lindwall 5-58) & 80 (Miller 6-35) v Australia 300 (Brown 112*) Australia won by an innings and 32 runs The Cast Vinoo Mankad Bill Brown Ravichandran Ashwin Thomas Barker, Nottinghamshire’s whirling dervish of a fast bowler, spent his winters employed as a stockinger, but it was on the cricket field where his lightning-fast digits did their most notable work. Barker was the first cricketer to enact a run out at the non-striker’s end in a first-class match and acquired something of a taste for the dismissal, pirouetting out of his bowling action to whip off the bails and dismiss batters looking to steal half a yard on five separate occasions between 1835 and 1843. Far from being demonised or cast as a pariah, Barker…

MEL FARRELL Australian writer and broadcaster @melindafarrell “I do think that India will be the main emerging nation over the next period, and they ’re already good, but they are going to be a force to be reckoned with” Belinda Clark was in the middle at Auckland’s Eden Park, Australia were down one-nil in the series, and the pressure was on. Much of it was self inflicted. Ahead of the tour, Australia’s captain had boldly talked about being aggressive and suggested the home side played a boring style of cricket. It wasn’t received well by the locals; during the first ODI, which New Zealand won by 22 runs, the fans didn’t hold back, either vocally or via their signs plastered with the word ‘boring ’. For Clark it was a…

JAMES WALLACE Wisden staff writerr @Jimbo_Cricket Jack Leach recalls a pivotal moment during the Old Trafford Test match against South Africa last summer, but it didn’ t happen on the pitch. “ We’d had a session of bowling and just before we went back out after lunch, Baz [Brendon McCullum] calls me over. He said, ‘Leachy, can you do me a favour?’ And I’m like, ‘Sure, what is it?’ He says, ‘ You’re far too serious today, can you remember to smile?’” Leach chuckles at the memory. He is talking to WCM from his hotel room on New Zealand’s South Island, a fortnight out from the Test series. “ You know, it was just a tiny moment but it made me have a word with myself and I was like,…

January Sir Pelham Warner dies February Harold Wilson becomes leader of the opposition Labour Party March The Beatles release their first studio album, Please Please Me i Publication of the Beeching Report, recommending the closure of 2,128 railway stations April Lawrence of Arabia wins best picture at the Oscars i First-class season starts with the front-foot no-ball rule in operation for the first time May Gillette Cup kicks off in Manchester June England and West Indies play out dramatic last-ball draw at Lord’s July British spy Kim Philby, one of the ‘Cambridge Five’, granted political asylum and citizenship in the Soviet Union August Great Train Robbery takes place in Buckinghamshire i Martin Luther King delivers his ‘I have a dream’ speech in Washington DC West Indies win the Wisden Trophy,…

Approaching the beginning of the English season, wickets are likely to be slow, green, and relatively damp. This will lend itself to swing and movement off the seam, so playing late will be the key. These drills, particularly the first three, will help you get into position early but make sure you connect with the ball late to ensure the best timing. These drills take those factors into account to ensure you are best prepared for the start of the season. #1 The ‘no feet’ drill With either bobble feeds (tennis balls that bounce a number of times) or throwdowns, have the ball fed to you without moving your feet at all. The ball doesn’t need to be delivered with any real pace, the key here being that you focus…

Riding high after securing their 20th outright County Championship title last summer, Surrey are now highlighting the positive impact cricket can have off the park through a new campaign to educate young people about the variety of nonplaying career opportunities within the game and telling the stories of the passionate, committed people who work within it. ‘A Life in Cricket’ will be part of a trio of interconnected campaigns in 2023 – alongside ‘It’s Not Just Sport… It’s Art’ and one yet-to-beannounced project – that speak of the positive and powerful role cricket can play across an entire lifetime. For ‘A Life in Cricket’, Surrey, The Kia Oval and the Surrey Cricket Foundation will partner with Street Child United, Kia UK, Wisden Cricket Monthly and The Authors Cricket Club to…

ADAM COLLINS Wisden Cricket Monthly Australia correspondent @collinsadam For followers of English cricket, there’s a certain dread that comes ahead of an Ashes tour of Australia. The relentless build-up can foster a bit of false hope, but deep inside they know that in all probability it will go badly, and perhaps dramatically so. Only rare exceptions offer any relief, with another chapter to the sorry story written just last winter. Less obvious, but becoming equally powerful, is the sense of trepidation that surrounds Australia when touring India. Just as it is with England, their focus on winning the Border-Gavaskar Trophy away from home begins from the moment they’ve been defeated the previous time. Years out, players are identified as capable enough against spin that they might fit the bill for…

It was freezing cold in South London on the evening of Tuesday, January 24, but the Oval pavilion was emitting its own kind of warmth. The Long Room had been put at the disposal of the African-Caribbean Engagement programme – acharity chaired by Ebony Rainford-Brent that is changing the way the game is perceived in the country’s most-forgotten cricket community. It may also be changing the way cricket perceives itself. Rainford-Brent, it should be said, is a force of nature – aveteran of 29 white-ball internationals for England, and a dab hand at any sport she has played, including football, basketball, squash and even putting the shot. She brings energy to everything she does, and ACE is lucky to have her. When it comes to diversity in sport, progress can…

“There’s a study I happened upon years ago that focused on what ’s described as ‘hyperdread’, where the psychological damage from fear of catastrophic events is worse than when they occur. And so it feels whenever the topic of Indian pitches comes up” PHIL WALKER WCM editor-in-chief There was nothing wrong with the Nagpur pitch, and lots wrong with Australia’s way of playing on it. Hamstrung by bad selections, they were 2-2 on day one, both openers done by the seamers, and of the others who made starts only Steve Smith could be excused from the crime of playing a bad shot. Thereafter Rohit was imperious, Nathan Lyon bowled 49 overs for one wicket, and Australia lost by an innings. That’s the game. Every home team expects to play on…

Sussex Sussex have been busy in the transfer market, snapping up three overseas signings following the news that Jayden Seales, the West Indian quick, won’t be arriving at Hove after undergoing knee surgery. Shadab Khan, the Pakistani spin-bowling all-rounder, will join up with the Sharks for the duration of the Blast, while Nathan McAndrew, the Aussie pace bowler who spent last summer with Warwickshire, will be available in both the Championship and the Blast from April to July. The most eye-catching news, however, was Sussex ’s capture of Steve Smith, who will warm up for the Ashes by playing three Championship fixtures – including the home match against Glamorgan beginning on May 18, with Smith set to go up against his Australian teammate Marnus Labuschagne. Having managed a solitary Championship…

At the age of 18, after growing four inches in just a couple of months, the greatest English batter of the modern era, perhaps any era, didn’t know where his next run was coming from. Joseph Edward Root, star in waiting, was so discombobulated by his growth spurt that his struggles had become a running joke among teammates. Kevin Sharp, the Yorkshire batting guru whom he would later describe as the most influential coach in his career, nicknamed him ‘Bambi ’, the poise at the crease which had seen Root rise seamlessly through the ranks suddenly, alarmingly, deserting him. “Feeling trapped in an alien body, I kept falling over in my strokes,” Root writes in Bringing Home the Ashes (2015). “During that period, if I wasn’t being struck on the…

At the heart of club cricket Freelance sportswriter and stalwart club cricketer @reverse_ sweeper It’s July 1992, the 21st edition of the annualTrinity Cup match between the representative teams of the Bolton and District Cricket Association (BDCA) and the Bolton Cricket League (BCL) – two distinguished competitions from a town of around 200,000 souls that has spawned 38 first-class cricketers – and the latter’s brawny blond Australian opener, one of three permitted pros, collects a streaky two. Someone in the BDCA side has a word. Matthew Hayden, the paid man at Greenmount CC, where he would amass 1,438 runs at 75.7 alongside future Manchester United and England full-backs Gary and Phil Neville, fires back. “There seemed to be an unwritten code of respect with other pros,” recalls Hayden’s Greenmount teammate…

Joe Root’s effortless timing and control is largely due to his rhythmical backswing. At ball release he points his front elbow forward and brings his hands close to his midriff. His top hand is level with his front thigh before it starts to smoothly swing the bat back. As Joe moves his head and front shoulder forward to the ball, his hands and bat are then taken back and the toe of the bat points upwards (this gives a longer swing and helps to get on top of the bounce of the ball). By having his top hand on the front thigh at ball release, Joe can create a fast and smooth swing of the bat backward and forward, much like a golfer swinging a club back from a mid-body…

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 March 20, 2023. 1. 5 years ago… On March 23, 2018, which country defeated Ireland by five wickets at Harare to secure their place at the 2019 Men’s World Cup despite having lost to Scotland, Zimbabwe and Hong Kong in the group stage of the qualifier? 2. 10 years ago… On March 18, 2013, India beat Australia by six wickets at Mohali to take a 3-0 lead in their four-Test series. Which Australian, batting at No.9, made 99 in the first innings? 3. 15 years ago… On March 26, 2008, England defeated New Zealand by 121 runs in the…