Innehållsförteckning för Issue 77 från Wisden Cricket Monthly

EDITOR'S LETTER The news broke around Monday lunchtime on the last day of the Championship's second round. At The Oval, where I was, the union flag, fluttering dementedly in the April gales, was lowered to half-mast above the pavilion. Same as at Chelmsford, where Kent were scrapping to avoid defeat. Soon enough the messages started coming through, one from a former colleague, reminding me of the time he interviewed him in his living room, supping Darjeeling from the Underwoods' best china and leafing through the old family albums. Mournful official statements began popping up in inboxes. Grainy clips of lightness and sparkle started appearing on media sites. Everywhere, the sense of a community of souls, sighing and pausing and taking a breath. England's greatest slow-not-slow spinner-cum-cutter bowler - our schoolteacher-shirted,…

@miiler_cricket The more you watch international cricket, the more its dynamics begin to resemble a round-the-world yacht race. Sometimes, with a fair wind, teams can put in bursts of effortless, elongated acceleration that give the impression that everything is, and will remain, in perfect working order. At other times, they're back in the doldrums, or being buffeted by the waves, and the only answer to their predicament is a drastic change of tack. But, whether it's a case of permissive regimes losing their way for want of a whip-cracker to maintain team discipline, or those same disciplinarians being confronted with the need to lighten up and let their players breathe, broadly speaking, continuity is the aim. Those thunderclap moments - such as Andy Flower taking over from Peter Moores or…

@KatyaWitney Bouchier moves to the front of the queue Going into the T20 leg of the tour, the biggest question England had to answer was over their opening partnership. With Tammy Beaumont back in the squad and Danni Wyatt unavailable until the fourth match due to her WPL commitments, a straight shootout between Beaumont and Sophia Dunkley looked likely to dominate the early part of the tour. But Maia Bouchier flew under the radar. Bouchier's 95 against Sri Lanka last summer and impressive domestic numbers up the order, combined with the absence of several top-order batters, earned her the No.3 spot for the first T20I in Dunedin. The 43 not out she scored in that game was a taste of what was to come. A 47-ball 71 in the third…

ISSUE 77 Here's a little secret: a lot of the time, in the more run-of-the-mill news stories, those who are said to have said something didn't actually say those things. A PR person will bash out 150 words, the quote attributee, or at least someone linked to them, will say, “Yeah, good enough”, and off it goes. To pick one maybe not quite at random this month, you'd wager Sachin Tendulkar perhaps didn't say “the brand philosophy of maximising the value of space stood out for me” when his partnership with furniture company Hafele was signed and sealed. But that “Yeah, good enough” step is crucial, as the Pakistan Cricket Board found out, setting themselves on collision course with Shaheen Shah Afridi over an unapproved utterance when he was axed…

PERFORMANCE SPECIAL BATTING MASTERCLASS WITH OLLIE POPE ENGLAND'S VICE-CAPTAIN AND NO.3, POPE HAS MADE FIVE TEST HUNDREDS INCLUDING AN INNINGS OF 196 AT HYDERABAD IN JANUARY DESCRIBED BY JOE ROOT AS “ONE OF THE BEST KNOCKS I'VE EVER SEEN” Is batting technique a constantly evolving process? Someone like Joe Root is constantly making tiny adjustments to his game but maintaining the same basics. Batters learn along the way. It's easy to look up to your idols and say you want to bat like them, but you need your own template. What works for Ollie Pope? Not what works for someone else. How much do conditions impact technique? The recent tour of India is the perfect example. For three months, I'd been working on my trigger for reverse-swing bowling, trying to…

The Wisden Club Cricket Hall of Fame In a first-team career stretching from a tight spell at Rohan Kanhai as a 15-year-old that impressed the head of the Lancashire Federation team, via tussles with David Boon, Ravi Shastri, Gordon Greenidge, Jacques Kallis and many others, to retirement 41 years later, only one bowler pocketed more Northern League wickets than David Higham's 1,348. None of the league's 1,000-wicket quartet took them at a better average than his 13.98. Joining hometown club Preston at 12, the rudiments of the left-arm spinner's famed accuracy were instilled by Ken Brothwood. By the age of 19, 'Higgy' had replaced his mentor as club pro, and his 90 league wickets at nine apiece in that seminal 1966 summer would not only be his best haul but…

In association with 3. PLAYING AWAY BY CARYL PHILLIPS (FILM 1986; BOOK 1987) Last time we looked at a novel depicting “the misty, lovely, irregular landscapes… that can be found in England and only in England”, implying cricket was a lovely, irregular game that could have been invented only by the English. Although The Cricket Match left many reminders that a generation of Sussex youth had been decimated in the Flanders mud, Hugh de Selincourt gave no sense of a World War between empires, in which Britain's dominions and colonies made the same sacrifices. When the book was published, the British empire was at its zenith, in terms of square mileage if not self-confidence, yet there is but a single glancing reference to any imperial subject: the most popular ditty…

TAKE THE WINS… It s been a good month tor the Wisden stable. Our brilliant writer Katya Witney was named the ECB's Christopher Martin-Jenkins Young Journalist of the Year, the judges praising her “well-rounded, thought-provoking and clearly written portfolio”, while Wisden.com editor Ben Gardner (who must be lying about his age by now) was highly commended in the same category. Elsewhere, Scott Oliver, club cricket doyen and stalwart of these pages, received Wisden's Book of the Year for his fabulous work, Sticky Dogs and Stardust: When Cricket's Legends Played in the Leagues, and Jo Harman got engaged! THE CRICKET STORE If you're scouting around, looking to buy any new equipment for the season, do check out The Cricket Store's website. It's an innovative new venture run by real authentic cricket…

1st T20I, Dunedin England 160-4 (Knight 63, Bouchier 43*) v New Zealand 133-5 (Bates 65; Bell 2-29) England won by 27 runs 2nd T20I, Nelson England 149-7 (Knight 56*; Mair 2-25) v New Zealand 134-8 (A Kerr 44; Bell 2-24) England won by 15 runs 3rd T20I, Nelson New Zealand 155-3 (Devine 60, A Kerr 44*; Gibson 2-22) v England 152-8 (Bouchier 71; Bates 2-4) New Zealand won by 3 runs 4th T20I, Wellington England 177-3 (Bouchier 91) v New Zealand 130-7 (Halliday 25; Dean 4-26) England won by 47 runs 5th T20I, Wellington New Zealand 136-6 (Gaze 51*; Ecclestone 3-30) v England 138-5 (Knight 35; A Kerr 3-30) England won by 5 wickets (with 7 balls remaining) England won the series 4-1 1st ODI, Wellington New Zealand 207 (Bates…

LETTERS An alternative prize will be provided if the winner is aged under 18, or if requested *Only available to UK residents We reserve the right to edit letters for length and clarity * LETTER OF THE MONTH Remembering the fallen I was first drawn to the Wisden Almanack by the moving 2014 publication 'Wisden on The Great War: The Lives of Cricket's Fallen 1914-1918', an edition which more than sated what has become an enduring interest for military and sporting histories - seldom related genres, to be sure! Over the years, other sports writers such as Michael Atherton have also paid tribute to the heroism of such marginal figures as Norman Callaway, the Australian batsman lost during the Great War after only one Test match, in which he scored…

In association with The statistical story of Don Bradman's career is usually short and sweet. His Brobdingnagian Test average of 99.94 is as instantly recognisable as a 100m world record; everything else is just detail. Happily for those who find dopamine in that detail, more of it is available than ever. While the technological limitations of the day mean we will never know, for example, Bradman's exact average against Bodyline bowling, there are plenty of insights to be found beyond the bleedin' obvious. There is also the chance to explore an intriguing question: if captains had access to data which was potentially available at the time, what, if anything, could they have done differently? The CricViz database has full ball-by-ball data for45 of Bradman's 52 Tests, including all 37 against…

Craig White England v West Indies The Oval, London September 2, 2000 PHOTO BY LAURENCE GRIFFITHS A talented wicketkeeper during his formative years in Australia, by the time White returned to Yorkshire, the county of his birth, in 1990 he had been converted into an off-spinning all-rounder. But it wasn't until his talent to bowl genuinely fast was revealed that his career began in earnest. Fast-tracked into the England set-up by former White Rose skipper Ray Illingworth, White recalls that captain Mike Atherton “made it very clear he didn't want me in the team” and he produced little of note in his first spell in the side. It took a life-changing, and potentially life-threatening, moment to reignite his international career. “I blacked out in the street in Scarborough,” White tells…

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 May 27, 2024 1. 5 years ago… On May 30, 2019, which visiting 41-year-old off-spinner took a hat-trick and returned career-best figures of 8-64 in a County Championship match at Edgbaston and still finished on the losing side? 2. 10 years ago… On May 20, 2014, which Pakistani spinner took career-best figures of 7-19 to bowl Worcestershire to victory over Essex in a County Championship fixture at New Road? 3. 15 years ago… On May 18, 2009, England defeated West Indies by an innings and 83 runs in the second Test at Chester-le-Street. Who scored their third century in as…

@MarkRamprakash What attributes does a Test cricketer need? When it comes to batters, it's time - there are certain players who just appear to have more time to react to the ball than others, and that's crucial at the top level when the bowlers are generally faster. The ability to comfortably play the ball above the waist is another good indicator. Trescothick and Vaughan had it, as does Zak Crawley, and that convinced the England selectors they could cut it at Test level even when their county records were modest. As for bowlers, I look for height, pace, accuracy and lateral movement. If you have three of those things, then you can very likely trouble international batters on good pitches. Based on his recent comments, it's clear that Rob Key…

@Booth Cricket At Edgbaston, Durham scored 517 against Warwickshire - and followed on. At Wantage Road, Northamptonshire and Middlesex topped 1,100 runs between them, for the loss of eight wickets. At Grace Road, Sussex all but reached 700 against Leicestershire. Almost everywhere you looked in the second round of Championship matches, bowlers were doing their best to confirm TS Eliot's wisdom about April being the cruellest month. The culprit was not in doubt: the Kookaburra ball, in use for the first two rounds as part of the ECB's attempts to force English seamers to work harder for success, had in many cases rendered them completely impotent. Alec Stewart, Surrey's director of cricket, denounced the experiment in advance as “the worst decision ever”. Lewis Gregory, the Somerset captain, spoke for many…

Elgar believes Test cricket is being watered down in South Africa and fears for the format's future at home. He is scathing of CSA's decision to play a Test series in New Zealand earlier this year without first-choice players because of a clash with the SA20 domestic competition. “I actually feel for the players they sent to New Zealand. I think they're good players but there's absolutely no experience whatsoever. You throw in the guys that were playing in the SA20 and things will look quite different. I mean, if you've got a few brain cells in your head, you know that series should never have happened. And just that kind of decision-making is one of the reasons it's a very unprofessional kind of environment to be around or to…

Derbyshire NEXT MATCHES: Sussex, CC (H), May 3-6; Northants, CC (H), May 17-20; Gloucs, CC (A), May 24-27; Northants, T20 (A), May 30; Leics, T20 (H), June 1; Lancs, T20 (A), June 2 Derby's winless run stretches to 20 Not since July 28, 2022 have Derbyshire tasted victory in the County Championship. The UK has had three prime ministers in that time, Watford FC have had five managers and Sunil Narine has played for six different teams in five different countries. And still, after a winless streak of 20 matches, the Derby faithful wait. The county's off-season recruitment brought a cautious sense of optimism ahead of the new campaign, but their first three matches ended in stalemate, largely due to poor weather. There wasn't a single ball bowled in their…